See, as this is the weekend just after the good old Microsoft Xbox conference, I felt this would be the perfect time to delve into the big showstopper they had to end their show on, because I have no patience or anything else I need to talk about right now. That being said, this 'Showstopper' was unsurprisingly scarce of tangible details (what did you expect? This was a Microsoft showcase) So I'm merely going to jump into what this announcement meant for me. Heh, listen to me playing it so coy when I've literally told you the subject in the title bar. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, after years of rumours, waiting, silence, that one weird spin-off, and another ill-fated spinoff, we've finally gotten our confirmation for Fable 4- wait, they just said Fable? (Oh god, this isn't a remaster, is it? I'm going to cross my fingers and labour under the assumption that this isn't a remaster.)
Now let me start by saying that I have something of an interesting relationship with Fable. Usually when it comes to these retrospectives I'm resplendent with praise, talking about how this game was 'my childhood' and how it's 'an example to all developers of today', but that really isn't the case with old Fable. And that's because for me Fable was the kind of series that, for the majority of it's lifespan, was something I always heard about in passing from someone and somewhere else. I saw spots on the TV about Fable 2 and thought (huh, that looks pretty cool) but by that stage I was too deep into all the other great games of the day to pay Lionhead Studios' darling any attention. It was only really around the time of Fable 3 that I really got invested and heard all the stories, read all the previews, drank the cool-aid, so to speak. And as someone who had, up until then, no real experience with the enigma that is Lionhead's founder and Ex-CEO Peter Molynuex, I didn't know the monkey paw twist that would come with every promised feature. Yes there would be an open world, but it would drab and dull, losing all value the second the main quest was done. Sure there was this 'interaction' system that the game pushed, but it was gimmicky, irrelevant and stole development efforts away from systems that mattered. The story had consequence, but all the moral dubiosity faded after the opening choice, from there it was black and white boredom with the potential to make the game-world actually empty if you made the 'wrong' choice. So I bought the game, I played the game, and after it all I just felt a kinda bummed that I'd been sold a game that honestly wasn't good.
That isn't to say that Fable 3, or any of the Fable games, were without their heart or merit; not in the slightest. Playing Fable 3 I got the sense that it was the passion project of an English studio that wanted to make something special, but the vision was bigger than the scope of the team working on it and as far as I can tell that has always been the problem with Fable. Everyone remembers the infamous promise of an acorn that could grow into a tree from the first game, that was more than just an ideal prospective feature tossed around by an overexcited project lead; that was an example of the kind of over the top dreams that fuelled this franchise. Now I would never say that dreams or inspiration is bad for creativity, or even for game making, but when designing for a project there has to be a point where you sanitise and decide to work with the resources at your disposal rather than the ones in your head. I feel like that moment came too late for all of the games in this series.
Everytime I tried to play a Fable game it felt like I was trying a smaller scale game that had been stretched and distorted to fit this mismatched canvas that didn't need to be there. None of these games have ever made their free roam elements work in a laudable manner, most of the games were entirely devoid of meaningful decision making and one of the games couldn't even pull of a well adjusted and cohesive narrative. But what these games could do was conjure up a pleasing fantastical world of satire and swashbuckling adventure, they could establish great and memorable characters, nail a decent ark for the protagonist and even pull of a memorable set-piece every now and then. What I saw whenever I played Fable was potential, which is why I found it so tragic that their developer, Lionhead, kept slipping at it again and again. Something depressingly bookended with the closure of the studio and the cancellation of their next Fable-related project which, to be fair, sounded kinda lame.
So with all that backstory to simmer on, you might be a tiny bit perplexed at to why it is I'm actually totally on-board for this new Fable game. Well the secret for that actually lies in the title of the product itself, in that it's not called 'Fable 4', but just 'Fable'. Early reports suggest that this is indicative of a new dawn for the franchise, which would make sense seeing as how we have a new studio at the helm and everything. Therefore I think it's fair to say that this has the potential to right the wrongs of the past and actually focus on the things that matter, that things which make the Fable franchise unique and great. Maybe with a fresh set of eyes on a familiar concept we could really start to open up a path to the greatness that the Fable franchise has held dormant, and maybe Microsoft will finally get their own quality fantasy franchise. (Got to consider every angle!)
Whilst the footage we saw in the reveal trailer was so frightfully non-specific that I suspect this is likely a title in early development, (bold for emphasis) I think that makes a great opportunity to talk about the directions that this new game could take to make it the best Fable to date. My number one in that category would be for the team to seriously consider shifting course and scrapping the open world aspects in favour of a focused epic adventure. How great could every Fable game have been if they'd approached that model? The struggle against Jack of Blades, Lord Lucien and even whoever it was that was the villain of Fable 3; (I cannot overstate how forgettable they were) they all could held much stronger arks in a focused linear adventure. That would also make it easier to throw-in choice and consequence and would have solved the problem of all that lifeless-feeling world that the Fable franchise suffers from. (I recognise that not everyone shares my feelings on how dull the Fable open worlds' are. But that's how I feel.)
Whatever the case if there's one thing the general public is slowly becoming aware of it's the fact that this will absolutely feel very different to the Fable that they're used to. (Which, again, is a good thing in my books) Rumors that leaked the announcement also say that the game has drastically changed up the gameplay and wants to re-imagine the franchise, in what direction it's hard to say but that alone can be interpreted in some promising ways. (Although, before you go putting too much stock in such leaks, I will remind you that correctly guessing Microsoft would revive a profitable franchise that they own the rights to hardly makes one Nostradamus) Additionally, the studio that has been placed in charge of this project happens to be Playground Games; a studio which, as far as I'm willing to look into it, have up until now only been responsible for making the Forza Horizon games. What I'm trying to say is that we have a wildcard in terms of what to expect and this could result in something really imaginative and unexpected from a genre where they're new. Or the pressure of starting a new genre of game development might overwhelm them and they resort to all the tired cliches of your average Ubisoft game. (It can really go either way at this point.)
As far as reveals go, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tiny bit disappointed by how sparse this one was. I'm not one of those talking heads that immediately parrot "No Gameplay = bad", but I recognise that the point of a trailer, even a teaser trailer, is to establish a baseline of the product in order to entice the viewer. Fable's trailer opens us up to speculation, but it's rampant speculation where we don't even know if we're looking a sequel, reboot or what the hell's going on. I tend to err towards the positive in situations like this, so I hope that Fable has something shattering to show us next time around, because I'm open to a whole new type of game from that world. Until then, however, it's going to be information scraps and rumours time. (yippee...)
No comments:
Post a Comment