PaigeFTW: A Fable Ended
Microsoft’s recent announcement that it would be canceling Fable Legends and looking to close Lionhead Studios has made me think about the developer’s most famous franchise — Fable.
I always liked the Fable games, but I never loved them. The idea that my actions would change the world around me was cool, though I never really noticed much difference besides that I had very nice skin and people didn’t run away when they saw me. It had an interesting world lore that I could not tell you any specific details about today if you begged me. The gameplay was fast paced and also wildly unintuitive, though I did like that flying sword magic spell in the second game.
I did have a dog though. That was a good dog. I once sacrificed a thousand innocent lives for that dog without a moment of regret. And I once tore down an orphanage to build a brothel because I earned a small fortune in gold, which came back to bite me when I misplaced one of my children after I divorced my wife. My poor lost son …
Fable was a lot of great ideas that never really got executed properly, and now — unless Microsoft hands the franchise off to another developer — will never get a chance to try.
If Fable were to live on, I’d like to see it follow the model of series like Dragon Age or even The Legend of Zelda — taking a more thoughtful approach to story and lore, as well as trying to weave a consistent thread through these disparate worlds; and refining its gameplay and focusing on a particular element, whether it be puzzles or combat or exploration. Mediocrity in all fields does not a compelling franchise make.
I’d also like for Microsoft to stop imposing random concepts like Kinect onto the poor series — let it be the full-blown console RPG experience that it should be.
