So somehow this was quietly one of the longest development times for a video game?
We have a strange note about next year’s Fable.
In a feature for the game and interview with Playground Games, The Guardian made this claim:
Since the Fable reboot started production in 2016, the industry has weathered a disastrous pivot to live service games, a global pandemic, and more than 6,000 layoffs at Playground’s parent company, Xbox.
Eurogamer first reported that Playground was tasked to reboot Fable in 2018, two years after The Guardian’s claim. This suggests that Microsoft gave the project to them as soon as they could.
Microsoft closed Fable’s original studio, Lionhead Studios, in 2016. This led to their online co-op game Fable Legends getting cancelled. We know Playground was looking for a project to take their knowledge of open world racing games to good effect, so Microsoft, then under Phil Spencer, may have agreed to give it to them in the same year.
In The Guardian’s interview, Fable director Ralph Fulton said this:
I genuinely think Fable is an important game. What has protected us over a long development cycle is that so many people within Xbox view Fable as vital to the DNA of the platform.
