Microsoft is making a new game in the Fable franchise, reports Eurogamer, citing multiple anonymous sources. The developer is said to be Playground Games, makers of the Forza Horizon series.
While as yet unconfirmed by Microsoft, Eurogamer reports the publisher has handed the reins to Playground, which, if true, comes less than two years after the closure of series masterminds Lionhead Studios.
The death of Lionhead in 2016 marked the end of co-operative ARPG spin-off Fable Legends, however it’s understood that this iteration of Albion will be a big-budget, story-driven main series entry.
According to Eurogamer, the new Fable will be something of a clean break from the previous iterations developed by former studio Lionhead. Original assets exist, but it’s likely that Playground will start again from scratch. Don’t expect its arrival any time soon, either. Sources say it’s still early days for the project, but the pay-off should be massive. Around 200 people have been drafted in to work on the game at Playground’s UK-based Warwickshire offices, which suggests Microsoft is throwing significant investment at the endeavour, and that Albion will return more fantastical than ever before.
Fable was created in 2004 by Peter Molyneux’s company, Lionhead, and its sister company Big Blue Box. Each further game in the main series was made by Lionhead until Microsoft closed the developer down in 2016, canceling Fable Legends in the process. Fable has been dormant since, though Microsoft still retains the rights to the series and is therefore free to task other developers with making new entries. Eurogamer’s report states Microsoft’s desire to revive Fable was in part inspired by Sony’s Horizon Zero Dawn and its critical and commercial success.
Playground’s last game was 2016’s Forza Horizon 3. The company has released a new Forza Horizon title every two years since 2012, and that pattern would suggest a fourth entry in the spin-off series would be due this year. A second team could allow for the development of both a new Forza Horizon title and a new Fable game concurrently, however as yet the company has not officially confirmed either title. The studio’s founder, Ralph Fulton, has said Playground would not be abandoning racing games altogether.
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