Peter Molyneux's "Fables" and a New Beginning
The Fable series in 2004 immediately defied all the foundations of computer role-playing games "on serious matters." And if you now catch yourself thinking "damn, I played this," then congratulations—you are in the age group that remembers what RPGs born from an attempt to create a dream are. Even if this dream does not fit into any design document and rushes headlong ahead of the locomotive.
In many ways, all this became possible because Peter Molyneux was at the helm—a man with a rare gift for talking about games as if you were a child who had just come up with an incredible story and firmly believed that it could be brought to life. He knew how to infect others with this state. This was his strength—and his curse.
Because between the fairy tale told by a charismatic speaker and the production reality of deadlines, budgets, and limitations, a gap always arose. In Molyneux's fantasies, Fable invariably ran into the technologies of its time and eventually really turned into a "fable," about which old-timers of moldy forums can spend hours telling fascinating and nostalgic stories, while a new audience easily gets lost between truth and fiction.
And now it's 2026. January. We just learned that the new game in the Fable series will be released this fall. The venerable age of the franchise imposes very specific obligations on those who have to carry it further. Therefore, the task facing Playground Games is actually much more difficult than it seems from the outside. They need to not only prove that a studio famous for racing games is capable of making an RPG. They need to explain again why Fable exists at all.
To do this, Playground Games chose a radical but logical path—to start with a clean slate. The new Fable is positioned as a complete reboot. The events unfold in a familiar universe, but are not directly related to the chronology of the original Lionhead trilogy. Newcomers will not have to do "homework," and veterans will have slightly fewer reasons for nostalgic grumbling.
This approach gives the studio room to maneuver and creative freedom. This is an attempt not so much to literally reproduce the "DNA of the series" as to rethink its spirit—and, perhaps, finally fulfill more promises than reality allowed before. Well, since the entrance is now open to everyone, it's time to get to know each other again. Welcome to "Fable."
Tales of the British Forest
In the vastness of the wondrous land of Albion, in the quiet village of Briar Hill, there lived a child. Just a child—one of many whose name meant nothing then. Heroes had not been seen here for many years, and tales of them had long been considered a thing of the past.
But in a moment of real danger, a force suddenly awakened in this child—and it became clear that we were facing the first hero of Albion in many generations. And what is a hero without feats? Nature strives for balance, and one day a mysterious stranger appeared in the village, followed closely by evil. With one wave of his hand, he turned Briar Hill into stone. To save his loved ones, the hero had to take the first step beyond the threshold of the familiar world—a step that marks the beginning of the most interesting stories.
Lionhead once formulated the essence of the series briefly and succinctly: "a fairy tale, not fantasy." The new team took this motto seriously. Fable still clings to the intonation of a fairy tale and tells not about great chosen ones, but about ordinary people whose quiet, everyday life was suddenly disturbed by magic.
An important role in maintaining this continuity is played by the "British accent" of the game. The charm of Old England is presented here through the prism of grotesque and bright colors, and the local characters talk and behave as if they came not from the pages of an epic, but from the stage of a chamber comedy. Here they appreciate dry remarks, awkward pauses, and self-irony, and pathos almost always coexists with everyday stupidity.
The developers do not hide their sources of inspiration in the face of British shows like "The Office," "Peep Show," and "The IT Crowd" —to the point that "mockumentary" moments will appear in the game. Pseudo-documentary inserts, in which characters literally give interviews "on camera," are used for jokes, comments on what is happening, revealing characters, and direct dialogue with the player.
It sounds interesting, but the key question remains—how well-calibrated and dosed will the humorous component be. It is important to maintain a balance here: so that the gags complement what is happening, and do not destroy the immersion, and so that with all the irony and grotesque, the main question remains unchanged—what does it mean to be a hero to you?
A World Without Borders
As soon as the hero leaves the starting location, the entire Albion immediately opens up before him. The developers emphasize: there will be no closed zones or level restrictions here—you can go wherever your eyes look from the very beginning. A formal "main route," of course, exists: before turning to stone, the grandmother advises to visit Bowerstone, also known as Glushville, where the Guild of Heroes is based. But if curiosity gets the better of you, the game will not pull on the leash.
Such freedom requires serious support at the level of game design. What the content of the world will be and how exactly the balance and progression of the character will work, the authors promise to tell later. But it is already obvious: the game will have to adapt to the player's route, and not vice versa. This is an ambitious decision, the success of which directly depends on the implementation. History knows many examples when freedom of choice turned out to be just an illusion—just remember Fallout: New Vegas, where you can formally leave Goodsprings in any direction, but most routes quickly lead to certain death.
In terms of scale, Albion, of course, is inferior to the world of Forza Horizon—if only because you can move here at a maximum speed of a horse, and not a sports car. In return, Playground Games is betting on the density of content and atmosphere. Judging by the footage shown, the world looks noticeably less stylized and much more realistic than one might expect from a series with such a legacy.
However, the step towards realism does not destroy the feeling of a fairy tale, but, on the contrary, makes it more convincing. In some panoramas, echoes of Tolkien's Shire landscapes are caught, in others, associations with the surroundings of Hogwarts flash, evoking comparisons with Hogwarts Legacy. Visually, the project looks very confident, and I frankly like the chosen direction.
As for the content, the developers promise a large-scale sandbox with a scattering of interactive little things for the curious: the ability to enter almost any building, search every corner, and constantly stumble upon small events and activities. The only question is how evenly this content will be distributed around the world, so that the player really has an incentive to turn off the beaten path.
At the same time, the philosophy of Fable allows the player to put a big heroic bolt on great achievements and live an ordinary, peaceful life. You can engage in crafts—blacksmithing or farming, open a shop and make a fortune by honest work. Yes, these are no longer the fantasies about "planting the whole country with trees and watching them grow in real time," but buying your own shack, starting a romance, getting married, and raising a son—please.
And if the craving for adventure overtakes you in the middle of family life, you can always "go for bread" or go to the dark side. Breaking down doors and chests, stealing property, attacking civilians, becoming a polygamous polygamist or gaining a reputation as a drunkard—Fable allows you to play both the role of a respectable ordinary person and an inveterate hooligan. The consequences, of course, will not be long in coming, but the very fact of such freedom of action turns the game into a kind of RPG life simulator. Here you don't have to save the world all the time—you can just live in it. Especially when this world knows how to react even to the most insignificant little things.
Living Albion: A Thousand Unique Residents
To make the world really feel alive, the developers have populated it with more than a thousand unique NPCs. By the standards of modern games, this is not so much—especially if you remember that in some Chinese free action game there can be up to ten thousand characters in one city (hello, Where Winds Meet). However, in the case of Fable, it is not the scale that is important, but the level of detail.
There are no extras appearing out of thin air here. Each resident of the city or village has a name, appearance, profession, character, and daily routine. In the morning, they wake up and go about their business—to work, to the tavern, or to the market, and at night they return home to sleep. The settlements are designed so that each NPC has their own house and bed, and the player, if desired, can follow a specific character and see how they spend the day, what they love, and what they fear. Someone can be bribed, someone can be made to fall in love with you, and someone can be driven to a white heat by your antics.
Each of these characters can be talked to on various topics. And although the main storyline doesn't force you to get acquainted with all thousand residents, the very possibility of such interaction adds depth to the world. In theory, this looks like an attempt to create a holistic ecosystem that exists independently of the player, and doesn't just react to their presence.
The only question is how long this illusion can last. Will the variability of NPC behavior and reactions be maintained over dozens of hours, or will the lines start to repeat over time, and the thousand residents will be reduced to a few dozen templates? It's easy to doubt such statements — just remember the unfulfilled promises of the series' past visionary. At the same time, it's just as easy to believe in this approach, given modern technology and the long development period. In any case, as an answer to this challenge, the developers are proposing a reimagined reputation system that will help the "living" Albion react to the player's actions.
Good and Evil — in the Eye of the Beholder
The classic "karma" system from previous installments is a thing of the past. In the new realities, Fable abandons the scale of absolute good and evil — after all, everything in life is much more subjective. Instead, a reputation system has been introduced, based on a simple principle: the world judges the hero by the actions that someone saw.
If you did something secretly and left no witnesses, no one will know about it. From the point of view of the world's internal logic, this sounds convincing, but it immediately raises questions. For example, how exactly will the game encourage hidden feats and "unnoticed heroism"? Should great deeds necessarily be public to matter, or have the developers provided alternative ways to record such actions — through trophies, rumors, or indirect consequences? This moment remains behind the scenes for now.
It is also important that the opinions of the residents are no longer unified. Fable doesn't label actions as "good" or "bad" — each NPC decides for themselves what is acceptable to them. For one, kicking chickens is harmless fun, for another, it's a manifestation of cruelty. The hero can simultaneously be a robber, a Don Juan, a benefactor, a thief, a drunkard, or a libertine — in various combinations. Each settlement forms its own "bouquet" of reputations, reflecting local rumors about your deeds.
Residents can boo you on the street, express everything they think, refuse romantic relationships, or, on the contrary, literally throw themselves into your arms — in addition to more mundane effects like changes in prices for goods and services. The question here is rather in the depth: how far will this system go beyond lines and economic modifiers, and will it really affect the structure of quests, the development of the story, and the appearance of the world.
The developers themselves cite one of the most telling examples of how the idea of a "living world" and reputation works. It's about a side quest in which one of the hero's acquaintances accidentally turns into a giant and becomes a problem for an entire village. During the quest, the player faces a choice: kill the giant or try to save him. If you decide to deal with the character, the world will "remember" it.
His huge body will remain lying near the village until the end of the game. This will affect the cost of housing nearby, the mood of the residents, and how they will treat the hero in the future. For some, he will become the savior of the village, for others — especially relatives and close friends of the deceased — this decision will turn into a serious reason for hatred. Thus, the reaction of the NPC depends not only on the decision itself, but also on a branched network of social connections.
At the same time, you can try to correct unwanted "glory": atone in the eyes of society with opposite actions or hire a town crier who will convince the people of your piety. If everything really works as stated, then each playthrough may indeed be unique. But there is still the question of the systematic nature of this approach: will such consequences be rare, "showcase" examples, or will a similar logic really permeate most of the game — this remains to be seen.
And yes, no demonic horns or shining halos above your head. Playground Games deliberately abandoned this idea, emphasizing the key philosophy of the new Fable: good and evil exist only in the eye of the beholder.
Beauty and the Beast
Speaking of appearance. They offer to express individuality here through clothing, hairstyles, and other customization elements. How deep the character editor will be is not yet revealed, but one thing is certain: there will be at least several ready-made face presets in the game. So no one forces you to play as a swarthy "avatar" from early trailers. At this point, many, let's be honest, breathed a sigh of relief — the appearance of the heroine shown two or three years ago became one of the reasons for the заочного negativity around the game.
At the same time, it is important to understand: customization so far looks more like a tool for self-expression than a full-fledged system. How much the appearance will be woven into the mechanics — whether it will affect the reputation, the attitude of the NPC, or access to content — is an open question. I would, of course, like to see at least some reaction from the world if your hero is dressed like a devil.
However, whatever the appearance of the main character, there are enough monsters in the game anyway. And you will have to deal with them using a new combat system called style-weaving — conditionally, this can be translated as "interweaving styles". You can't say it more accurately.
Interweaving Styles
One of the key features of Fable is the absence of the usual system of classes, roles, and other RPG accounting, which usually tries to explain to the player in advance how exactly he should play. There is no such thing here. The hero doesn't choose a path at the beginning and doesn't lock himself in it until the final credits.
Melee weapons, bows, magic — all this exists simultaneously, is available from the very beginning, and is used depending on the situation. One moment you are working with a blade up close, the next you are retreating, showering enemies with arrows, and then you are back in the fight with a spell at the ready. The only thing that really changes is the set of active abilities that the player configures himself.
This philosophy is supported by the design of opponents. Enemies have pronounced strengths and weaknesses, which are proposed to be "uncovered" empirically. In the gameplay videos shown, for example, a flying ghost can be weakened by destroying its lantern with an accurate shot from a bow. And it's nice to drop thin humanoid enemies to the ground with a well-aimed shot to the legs, and then finish them off with a powerful hammer blow.
Thus, the game encourages observation and constant reaction to the situation, and not memorizing one working scheme. In the same context, it is worth mentioning the friendly fire system: dense groups of opponents can be turned to your advantage, forcing them to inflict damage on each other.
At its core, this is a quite familiar third-person action game. There are dodges, parries, and cinematic finishing moves of stunned enemies. The animations don't look perfectly polished everywhere yet, but in general, the combat system gives the impression of being lively and mobile.
Personally, the local combat reminded me of a hybrid of The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Veilguard. From the latter, it got a wide range of situational skills — like polymorph, repelling gusts of wind, and classic fireballs — which are not scattered between several characters, but combined into one. From "The Witcher", there is a familiar plasticity and dynamics of melee combat — imperfect, but acceptable. And in what proportions to use all this depends solely on the player.
In aggregate, the battles never seem boring — and this is critical for an open-world adventure designed for dozens of hours. The developers will need to maintain this flexibility so that the "interweaving of styles" does not eventually come down to a couple of the most effective combinations. To do this, the game will have to constantly push for improvisation — through a variety of enemies, situations, and combat conditions that do not allow you to act on a roll.
Analysis
It's great to see Fable finally taking shape after years of silence. Playground Games has shown not a scattering of disparate ideas, but a cohesive structure in which all elements are subordinated to one task — to let the player feel like the hero of a fairy tale on their own terms. A clear creative strategy and a sincere love for the original are clearly visible behind the project. This is felt even at the level of presentation: during the presentation, it was clear how the team's eyes were burning and how eager they were to show and tell as much as possible.
At the same time, the developers have not yet revealed all the systems that should keep this idea going in the long run. It is on how harmoniously the open world, simulation, combat and social mechanics come together that will determine whether the new Fable will simply be a successful reboot or a full-fledged contender for participation in the main nomination of The Game Awards 2026. It is already clear that the game has such chances.
If Playground Games manages to bring everything planned to fruition, we may be in for a triumphant return of Fable — perhaps for the first time without having to blush for unfulfilled promises. And, I confess, if at least most of the current statements turn out to be true, I am quite seriously ready to consider the new Fable as the first full-fledged alternative to the conditional The Witcher 3.
And if at some point Microsoft decides to ask $80 for this game, I'll probably grumble a little, but I'll still pre-order it. Because if you don't believe in such a fairy tale, then, honestly, what is there to believe in at all?