2025 Preview: Xbox’s Fable reboot seems to be ticking all the right boxes

Bustling towns, dry humor and a British development studio mean Fable’s return looks on track

Words by

Chris Scullion

30th Dec 2024 / 2:00 pm

It’s crazy to think that a series that was once such an important string in Xbox’s bow has been allowed to sit on the sidelines for so long.

Sit on the sidelines it has, however, and assuming its 2025 release window is met when Fable is released, it’ll be the first entirely new main entry in the series for 13 years (the last being Fable: The Journey, the Kinect-only Gubbins released on the Xbox 360).

If benching one of its most critically-acclaimed franchises for more than a decade was a mistake – and general consensus agrees it was – then Microsoft appears to be doing what it can to make up for it.

Putting the keys to the series in the hands of Playground Games may have seemed like an odd choice, but while the studio best known for the Forza Horizon games may not have had much previous association with the action RPG it’s certainly proved numerous times that it knows how to create a vast open world of real detail and beauty.

After all, you only need to look at its fictional take on Mexico in Forza Horizon 5 to see how its sprawling fields and thick forests could easily translate over to an open-world adventure game. What’s currently less of a known quantity is how Playground will take the formula Fable fans loved back in the day – a formula that’s now two generations old, remember – and bring it to the modern era.

It’s already been confirmed that Eidos Montreal has been supporting the studio with development, and while its last game Guardians of the Galaxy may have been a commercial flop it certainly wasn’t a critical one, meaning players can take reassurance that at least some of the development team has had experience delivering a game with a strong narrative and entertaining, humorous dialogue.

The latter is something a Fable game absolutely needs, and recent trailers starring comedians Richard Ayoade and Matt King show that Xbox is leaning heavily, as it should be given the previous games, on a British comedy vibe.

Everyone at Microsoft and Playground are still remaining tight-lipped on what the game’s plot will entail, but one little tease was at least shared on the Xbox website following the first gameplay trailer in June, which confirmed that King – best known by some for playing Super Hans in the much-loved sitcom Peep Show – will play Humphry, who “was once Albion’s greatest hero, but those glory days are long gone”.

Xbox says that Humphry will come out of retirement when “a mysterious figure from his past threatens the very existence of Albion”. Shots from the gameplay trailer also appear to suggest that Humphry will accompany the player at times, though it’s still unclear whether that’ll only be in some cutscenes or as an actual on-screen companion during battle, nor is it known how much of the game he’ll be around for.

The fleeting glimpses of gameplay shown in the trailer also reveal that the fantasy towns will be wonderfully detailed and bustling with villagers: a good sign, given that interaction with the townsfolk has always been one of the most entertaining aspects of the Fable series.

Vague ‘2025’ release dates always have us raising our eyebrows, and a game of this scope could yet be delayed (case in point, Avowed), but if Playground and Eidos Montreal can deliver in time, we could be looking at one of 2025’s very best.