There’s a lot to love about the idea of theFablereboot. Many fans will rejoice to know that Albion’s industrial age has been set aside forits wild, ancient past. It’s nice to revisit a high-fantasy reflection of the past, but those who do not learn from history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
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Likewise, the history of theFableseries contains many positive lessons that Playground Games, the developers working on the reboot, should also try to remember before they push toward the last phase of polish, testing, and release. While fans should be excited about a newFable, there are also a few good reasons to be hesitant about the reboot besidesa few odd facial animationsin the trailer.
10Visible Character Development
The morality system inFablewas never praised for being particularly nuanced or deep. However, where the “good VS evil” system succeeded was in giving the player visual feedback about their character’s progression. Horns and smoke for evil, light and feathery for good. Cliché, but it worked.
The same was true for the character’s attributes. Rather than just pointing to numbers in a menu, melee characters would slowly get more muscular, magic characters gained shimmering runes on their body, and ranged characters grew taller. This “show, don’t tell” approach was one of the appealing draws toFable. While “good VS evil” might be considered a little old-fashioned, it wouldn’t feel out of place in theFable reboot.
9Lasting, Meaningful Choices
While there’s a place for a basic,black-and-white morality system, many fans will agree that the system became too binary by the third entry. For example, one choice inFable 3involved choosing between blue and red decor. For whatever reason, the game considered choosing red an “evil” option. While Playground should include player choices, they should avoid this kind of false dichotomy.
Choices in theFablereboot should give players a reason to want to play the game over and over again once the credits roll (and shouldn’t simply be a choice given right at the end of the game). Each path should result in a permanent and far-felt change in the game world. These changes don’t have to be “paradise or heck,” but they should remind the player that what they do matters.
8Balancing Seriousness With Silliness
Today’s gaming landscape is littered with examples ofemotionally-bruised anti-heroes, tragic dads, and apocalyptic end-times. It is refreshing to see Playground put out a tongue-in-cheek trailer (starring the ever-delightful Richard Ayoade as the green-thumbed giant) that promises to continueFable’s tradition of silliness.
While a spot of silliness might be the perfect antidote for an era of endlessly self-serious, playing-it-safe titles, Playground should remember that whileFablewas ever-cartoonish,its storytelling always retained a certain edge. Like a good fairytale, the reboot should aim for a colorful, bright, and weird tone mixed in with the occasional gut punch mixed in for good measure.
7Better Defined Archetypes
By the end of the original trilogy, there was little difference between firing off a handgun and launching a fire spell. Playground’s Fable could improve this by offering players better-defined archetypes. For example, besides combat, magic could be used to interact with the world, granting access to secrets that a lesser-magically-educated player would miss.
By improving stealth mechanics, ranged characters could have a chance to cook up bombs, lay traps, and avoid getting their hands dirty altogether, perhaps for additional XP. Players who just want to smash and bash their way through would still feel at home swinging their hammer or great sword around.
6Offer An Abundance Of Activities
Fable 2did an outstanding job of making side content matter. As quests no longer granted gold, the player would need to take up a job. Thankfully, these jobs took the form of fun mini-games that broke up the action and immersed the player into the world. Besides jobs, there were gambling activities, endless exploration opportunities, and key collections to keep the player busy.
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WhileFable 3’s broken property management system/landlord simulator meta-game was true to real life, it did make earning money far too easy. Worse, it made playing large chunks of the game pointless. Playground should avoid this pitfall by offering plenty of fun activities to keep the player busy. These activities should feel completely optional, be varied, and provide compelling rewards, besides gold: XP, cosmetics, emotes, or extra content, to name a few.
5Tighten Up The Combat
By the end of the originalFabletrilogy, combat wasn’t exactly at its most refined. Take, for example, the absurdity of the hand-to-hand enemy inFable 3being able to block the player’s battleaxe power swings. Playground should take whatever measures are needed to make combat fluid, varied, and fun.
More variety in weapon types would be a welcome addition. More weapons could mean getting the player to think more during fights. While suggesting aWitcher 3-style combat system would be excessive,rewarding the player for skilled combathelps keep any encounters feeling fresh.
4More Fleshed-Out Socialization
Performing the same overly-complex secret handshake with every single NPC to befriend the whole village was fine, but there’s probably a more compelling (and distinctlyFable) way to handle relationships. In previous entries, the player would be able to bring NPCs gifts or complete (usually samey) quests for them.
To make NPCs seem less generic, perhaps some of them favor one of the player’s attributes over another. Maybe certain styles, moral inclinations, or levels of wealth appeal to certain villagers while the same puts others off. Interaction mini-games could also fit in nicely. As long as Playground puts some work into interaction, fans should be happy.
3Stick To The Single-Player Experience
It’s true: new studio, newFable. But while the series may be getting a reboot, the memories fans have ofFable’s previously botched multiplayer attempts are likely here to stay.Fableis fondly remembered as a distinctly single-player experience. Any announcements of being able to team up would, at best, be met with skepticism.
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The developers should have more than enough on their plates to worry about without having to slap on any co-op features. Let players be driven by a pure, solipsistic sense of adventure without “always-online play” or microtransactions.
2Finish The Game
While there was a lot to enjoy about the conclusion to the original trilogy, buggy code, half-baked feature implementation, and an overall rushed ending effectively put the franchise to sleep for over a decade.Fabledelighted fans with itsexperimental and innovative gameplay, but this only worked as long as the developers had time to iron out the kinks. Playground should avoid being tarred with the same critiques that sankFable 3: lack of polish.
While a game’s release date is not often left to the developers, most fans of the series would agree that if the game needs a little more time in the oven, then having learned the value of patience, they can wait. Hopefully, this is something that the publishers can understand. As Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto famously said, “A delayed game is eventually good; a rushed game is bad forever.”
1Be Ambitious, Be Bold, And Have Fun!
Fablehas always pushed the boundaries of expectation (in more ways than one). While Peter Molyneux is no longer at the helm to promise wacky, outlandish experiences, many fans hope theFablereboot will contain something of the original series' somewhat crackpot design philosophy. From being able to “date” and marry any NPC in the game to farting at will, the series had features that would seem like baffling implementations to buttoned-up, modern game developers.
However, these seemingly arbitrary features were all part ofFable’s charm. While not every innovation went down well: NPC interaction never evolved beyond a childish level of emote japery, and while using a room instead of a menu was an interesting direction, it made switching spells a real pain. But Lionhead managed to make the overall experience more memorable than its tightly-wound triple-A RPG contemporaries.
Fableis in development for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
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