Studio co-founder and game director Ralph Fulton said in an interview that there was a degree of pride in the decision:
I think there was a small degree of pride in proving that we could handle a different genre.
At the same time, Playground used its experience creating Forza Horizon.
It made sense not to stray too far from Horizon. This project definitely shouldn't have cars, but open worlds seemed like an area where we have skills that could be applied to other projects.
The main factor was the team's own desire to work on Fable.
When Xbox mentioned Fable, all other possibilities faded into the background. We couldn't think of anything else.
The developers were also fans of the original Fable games. The game will be released on February 23, 2027, on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.