Fable Includes Over 1,000 NPCs But Abandons Player-Favourite Feature

It’s been many, many years since a game produced by one of Microsoft’s first-party studios secured a GOTY nomination.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle perhaps has come the closest in recent memory, securing two nominations albeit missing out on the GOTY category.

This isn’t to say that Xbox hasn’t delivered some fantastic titles. I enjoyed Avowed, Keeper, South of Midnight, and The Outer Worlds 2 a lot.

Fair to say, however, Microsoft is surely seeking out a certified banger with the power to sweep up during awards season.

Fable could well be it. I’ve got to hand it to Playground Games; it hasn’t put a foot wrong when it comes to what we’ve seen of this action-adventure reboot so far.

The upcoming release featured heavily in last week’s Developer Direct where devs narrowed down the launch window to autumn/fall, so we’re likely talking September to November.

I’d say the former two months are likelier given GTA VI’s occupation of November.

Since its updated reveal though, even more information about Fable has come to light, including the fact that it’ll boast over 1,000 NPCs.

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Playground Games’ studio general manager Ralph Fulton recently sat down with GamesRadar+ to discuss what’s been dubbed “the living population”.

“We knew that we wanted every NPC to be persistent, which is to say, you could, if you were so minded, follow an NPC around all day, and they will autonomously do the things that they do every day,” Fulton began.

Fable, Credit / Xbox Game Studios

“They'll get up, they'll go to work, they'll have some leisure time, they'll go back to their home, and they'll go to bed. And immediately, you know when you hear that, certainly as a developer, you start going, 'Oh, okay, so every NPC, and there's more than 1,000 of them in the game, needs a bed.'

“And you have that conversation with the environment art team, and they're like, 'They need what now?' Which is, it brings you to a very different way of building a game, because it needs to be functional as well as beautiful."

That’s certainly an impressive tease of just how immersive Fable is shaping up to be, making the lengthy wait we’ve endured for it all the more worthwhile.

It’s where certain releases have fallen down in recent years. Hogwarts Legacy springs to mind. It boasts solid combat and an engaging story, but the world is repetitive and very much lacks this level of care.

Fable is set to lose one feature, however, that may rock the boat a tad.

A New Morality System Bids Farewell to One Feature

In last week’s Developer Direct, fans got a better look at Fable’s new morality system which confirmed one pretty hefty change.

Whether you make good-natured or bad decisions will no longer affect your appearance, with the reboot seemingly doing away with the very binary “good or evil” morality system.

It’s not so clear cut in the reboot. Your actions will still have consequences, but those will be reflected in the way you’re treated by NPCs, for example.

Fulton spoke to IGN about the shift, explaining, “In our game, you build reputation based on the settlement, the town, the city that you’re in, the part of the world that you’re in.

“But when you go to a new place, a place you’ve never been to before, you walk in without any reputation and thus nobody knows what to think about you.

“And you can almost, through your behaviour, through your choices, form completely different reputations, a completely different identity, if you like, in that place from the place that you were last time. And you can do that across all the locations in the game.”

It may be a break from tradition, but this all feels much more well-rounded.

Fable appears to be ticking both boxes in appealing to the nostalgic amongst us whilst also offering something new and updated. Let’s hope it’s just as good as we’re expecting it to be.