Though Microsoft had a fairly strong showcase during E3 2021, the absence of certain games like Perfect Dark, State of Decay 3 and Fable was certainly felt. Many of those titles are rumored to be ways off and it may be a while before a proper reveal for something like Fable is forthcoming. Speaking on the Dropped Frames podcast (transcription via VGC), Xbox boss Phil Spencer didn’t have anything major to reveal but did praise the development team at Playground Games.
Pointing to its recent work on Forza Horizon 5 as an example, Spencer stated that, “The only thing I can really say about Fable is, seeing the pedigree of the team and Playground, and where they set the bar for themselves in building a game – I think that showed with the Forza Horizon 5 preview that they had – I think people should just take confidence in that [studio director] Gavin [Raeburn] and the team there have that same level of focus on doing something amazing with an IP that we know is really important to a lot of Xbox fans, so we can’t wait to get to show more, but the team is just amazing.”
It’s not a lot to go off of but it’s hard to deny Playground Games’ expertise especially given how the Forza Horizon series has performed thus far. The development team has also been bolstered with talent that formerly worked at Rockstar Games, Ninja Theory and BioWare while its lead writer, Anna Mergill, previously worked on Remedy’s Control. Fable will be running on the same ForzaTech engine which supports ray tracing (though whether the RPG itself implements it remains to be seen).
The title is currently in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC with a day one launch on Xbox Game Pass. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.