Playground Games knows Fable fans have been waiting a long time for a proper comeback. Fable 3 was the last mainline entry, and bringing the series back for a contemporary audience is no easy task. According to associate game director Will Kennedy, the studio is trying to honor what made the original combat tick while still building something that feels current.
It's a tricky balance. Fable has a lot of fans who've been waiting around for another installment - myself included - and we want this sequel to feel like the other games. But game development has evolved, and you don't want to alienate newcomers just to make sure it still feels like the original games to our old, decrepit hands.
"When we're talking about being faithful to the classic franchise, we thought about how there was an approachability to combat there," Kennedy told TechRadar. "And we knew that we wanted to be able to capture some of that for our game as well. But at the same time, we're making a game for modern players."
"We wanted there to be breadth and depth to it, so we landed on wanting to have style-weaving combat," he says. "We wanted to be able to move from move to move really smoothly and easily, and that combined with the level expression that you've got."
The system Playground created is all about versatility. You can edit your loadout from the top down, and you have four spell slots to tinker with to see what works for you. Kennedy notes that you won't be playing long before "you have a really broad, deep, rich suite of options to choose from."
He adds the team is "really proud" of how "satisfying" the RPG feels. "We've landed somewhere that is still approachable but has that depth that we want and so therefore is faithful but works in modern gaming as well for players, which is sometimes to be proud of," he finishes.
We'll see what he means when Fable finally launches.