After years of anticipation for the reboot of the beloved franchise, Playground Games finally pulled back the curtain on their Fable reboot during the recent Xbox Developer_Direct. Going into the showcase, my biggest question wasn’t about graphics or gameplay mechanics, it was something more fundamental: Would this actually be a proper Fable game, or just another action RPG borrowing the name?
Thankfully, Playground answered that question resoundingly. What they’ve shown is a game that remains completely true to what made Fable special while confidently modernizing the experience to meet today’s standards. This isn’t just Fable in name only—this is Albion reborn.
Features Returning Fans Will Love
Playground Games clearly did their homework, and it shows in the wealth of classic Fable systems making their triumphant return. Real estate management is back, allowing players to set rent prices low to be a benevolent landlord or crank them high to maximize profits. Of course, NPCs will absolutely react to your choices. You can fix up properties to sell them for higher values, home NPCs in your properties who work for you, and even evict tenants (much to their dismay, and they will remember your cruelty). But you won’t just be managing homes, you can purchase businesses throughout Albion as well, opening up even more opportunities for entrepreneurial heroes to build their fortune or become the most despised mogul in the realm.
Jobs return with their signature minigame approach to earning coin, letting you take a break from heroics to engage in honest work. And yes, before you ask—chicken kicking is also back. Some traditions are simply too important to leave behind. The game honors Fable’s narrative structure by starting players as a child, just like previous entries in the series. This approach always gave the franchise a unique coming-of-age quality, allowing players to grow alongside their character and form genuine attachments to Albion and its inhabitants. That the story appears to begin with relatively low stakes, much like the original Fable, is another encouraging sign. The best Fable stories started small and personal before escalating into something progressively more grandiose, and Playground seems to understand this narrative rhythm.
An Evolution of the Franchise
While respecting tradition is important, Playground isn’t afraid to push Fable forward in exciting ways. A full character creator is here as a series first. It fits their tagline, “Be the hero you want to be,” perfectly. The combat system looks like a fully realized, more impactful version of what The Witcher 3 attempted. You’ll seamlessly swap between melee combat with light and heavy combo attacks, devastating (and sometimes goofy) spells, and ranged weapons for enemies out of reach.
The combat even features smart environmental awareness too: dodge an enemy’s attack at the right moment and they might accidentally strike their own allies instead. Enemies also have stagger gauges that can be broken through sustained pressure, stunning them and opening them up for punishing follow-up attacks. Previous Fable games sometimes felt basic in its combat—this iteration appears to have solved that problem entirely.
Playground’s Albion is alive and bustling with NPCs who are all unique with their own names and lives. You can conversate, quarrel and romance them all. Best of all, as you’re moving through the bustle of towns, you will hear exactly how the people feel about you. From proclamations of admirations to disgruntled heckling, the townspeople’s voices will ring through. Playground has truly created a true living, breathing world.
The most fascinating evolution comes in the morality system. Gone are the simplistic black-and-white choices of good versus evil. Instead, Playground has embraced moral ambiguity, placing decisions in a grey area that better reflects the complexity of real ethical dilemmas. Even more intriguing is how NPCs respond to your choices. Each character has their own subjective morality and will react to decisions differently based on their personal values and beliefs. This promises to create a far more nuanced, reactive world than the franchise has ever offered.
Missing Features: Understandable but Still Disappointing
Not everything makes the transition to this new era of Fable, and some absences sting more than others. The dog companion, that faithful friend who accompanied players throughout Fable II and III, won’t be joining you on this adventure. For many fans, that canine companion was more than a gameplay mechanic—it was an emotional anchor that made Albion feel like home. Its absence will be felt.
Additionally, physical appearance changes based on moral choices won’t be featured in this iteration. In previous games, evil characters would grow horns and emanate dark energy, while heroes would develop halos and angelic features. While this was iconic to the series, its removal actually makes sense given the new morally grey choice system. If there’s no clear good and evil, there’s no logical way to reflect that binary in character appearance.
On a more minor note, the Developer_Direct footage focused heavily on forested environments, and I would have loved to see more varied biomes. I believe Albion should offer diverse landscapes, and while what was shown looks gorgeous, a glimpse of deserts, coastlines, or snowy peaks would have been welcome.
Final Thoughts
What Playground Games revealed during the Developer_Direct suggests they’ve been working on something truly special. The team emphasized they’ve “been working on this game for a really, really long time,” and that investment shows. This is clearly a labor of love from developers who understand what made Fable resonate with millions of players while having the vision to move the franchise forward.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t everything there is to know about Fable. One feature I’m particularly hoping to see is cooperative play. Fable II and III both featured co-op functionality, and rumors have swirled about drop-in, drop-out online co-op being tested during development and I hope it makes it into the final release. If Playground can deliver on that front as well, they’ll have created something even more special—a modern Fable that you can experience with friends.
Playground Games has demonstrated they’re not just making a Fable game in name only. They’re crafting a genuine successor that honors the franchise’s quirky British humor, its systems-driven gameplay, and its heart, while fearlessly modernizing elements that needed evolution. For Fable fans who’ve waited years for Albion’s return, this looks like almost everything we could have asked for—possibly even more.
