Originally expected to launch last year, Fable was delayed early in 2025 to 2026. Today, during the Xbox Developer_Direct, developer Playground Games shared its first extended look at Fable. Currently set to launch in fall 2026 on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, this new Fable is a reboot and is not a continuation of the original trilogy’s timeline. According to Playground Games, the team wanted the freedom to build a new version of Albion and tell a story without being bound to past events or characters. Despite that, Playground Games’ goal was to make a game that honors the spirit of Lionhead Studios’ work without trying to mimic it.
For this Fable, Playground Games focused on these core pillars: a fairytale tone that’s more intimate and personal than traditional epic fantasy, a distinctly British sensibility and humor, and choice and consequence as a foundational system. Players will begin as a child who sees heroic powers emerge, before a time jump to adulthood and starting off in the village of Briar Hill. To set things in motion, there’s an incident where a mysterious stranger turns the player’s grandmother and the entire village to stone, pushing them into Albion to find answers. Fans of the Fable franchise will recognize that Bowerstone and the Heroes’ Guild will be early leads in the game.
Upon leaving the starting village, players will be able to freely explore an open world, and the team is shaping progression and difficulty to avoid level gating. Currently, the main quest is designed without a “ticking bomb,” meaning players can freely pursue side activities at their own pace. In other words, there’s nothing forcing the player along a path. So if they want to get a job, settle down, and get married, those are all choices that are available to them.
As for combat, there’s a classic mix of melee, ranged, and magic. It has, however, been reworked into a “style-weaving” system so players can swap between styles seamlessly. Expect enemy encounters to be built around an assortment of enemy groups, requiring some tactical decision-making instead of just mindless button spamming. There are also intentional emergent combat moments, including enemy strengths and weaknesses, weak spots, and other chaotic interactions like friendly fire to spark some humor.
Another trademark feature of the Fable series is the morality system, and it’s being reworked from a basic good and evil slider into a reputation system that’s tied to witnessed actions. Throughout the game, players build different reputations in different settlements, and NPC reactions can affect social outcomes and even shop prices. This also ties into the living population system, as Fable will include over 1,000 persistent NPCs with roles, routines, and personal details. That living population feature is lightly tied into the main quest, but the team emphasized it doesn’t want players to be forced into these systems in order to progress. The goal is to strike a balance for player choice, whether they want to focus on the story or mess around with all the different systems.
We’ll get more information this year, leading up to the game’s planned launch in fall 2026. Hopefully it won’t see any more delays, as the title is looking very much like the Fable we all imagine we’d get on modern hardware. Playground Games says future updates will add more details on the cast, along with a deeper look at the main story and additional gameplay topics like progression, weapons, exploration, and the social and economic systems.
There’s a lot that was shared about Fable today, and if you want to learn more, you should check out the interview at Xbox Wire.
