Fable's faithful take on the originals is exactly what I wanted, but one missing feature will sting for longtime fans

Watching the Fable gameplay demonstration during the Xbox Developer Direct, I was struck by one feeling more than any other: nostalgia. Playground Games has been beavering away at its reboot to the classic Lionhead RPGs for a very long time now, and the relative radio silence over the past year had me rather worried about its status. The good news is that what it revealed yesterday immediately struck me as a loving, faithful follow-up to the original trilogy; the (slightly) bad news is that it makes the absence of an iconic feature hurt just a little. But stick with me, because the reasoning behind the change is sound.

"We've been working on this game for a really, really long time," Playground's founder and general manager, Ralph Fulton, acknowledges. Speaking to IGN, he says that the team pinpointed the fundamental pillars of Fable as player choice and consequence, themes that lean towards "fairytale, not fantasy," and an overall sense of Britishness. That understanding shines through in the Developer Direct's new glimpse of the game, and I think it'll make longtime Fable fans pleased (as it has for me). However, there is one thing that won't be coming back - your character's appearance changing based on your moral choices.

Dealing with the physical representation of your good or evil decisions is, in Fulton's own words, "a really central part of the original games." So why isn't it coming back? Luckily, he has a pretty good answer. The main reason is that the morality system in the new Fable doesn't use "objective good and evil […] you're never that thing, absolutely. You're different things to different people based on what they like or what they choose to value." It's a system he says is "more about the subjectivity of morality that, honestly, we see in the world today."

Alongside that is the fact that the new Fable uses location-based reputation. "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 of you. And you can almost, through your behavior, through your choices, form completely different reputations, a completely different identity. […] Now, you couldn't do that if you walked in with horns and a trident. Your reputation would precede you in that case. And honestly, that ability to be completely in control of your identity and thus what people think of you felt more important to us than that legacy feature."

That answer certainly sits well with me. I revisited the Fable trilogy with some friends over the past few years, so I have a renewed affinity for the series and its foibles. But sometimes it's ok to move away from classic concepts to enable something new. While the reboot's greatest strength looks to be the way it understands and pays homage to its heritage, it'll need to push forward in places to ensure it feels like a game suitable for a 2026 audience.

Fulton calls the new morality system "a great thing to point to, to show how we've taken something which was central to those original games and reimagined it. And I think in a way which is still faithful to the original games, but opens up huge gameplay opportunities." To me, it's the evolution of those fundamental tenets that will make a modern Fable game feel like a success more than flashy visuals or some intense action-combat overhaul.

The world of Fable isn't at the scale of the Forza Horizon games, naturally; you aren't moving anywhere near as fast, for a start. But it's much more densely packed; you're able to go inside every single building, for example. "You could rob it if you wanted, or you could buy it and live there with your family or with one of your families." That's important, because there are also 1,000 unique, handcrafted NPCs, all with voiced conversations. "It'll be a bit of work, but you could marry them all," Fulton suggests. "You can have kids with them, you can hire them, you can fire them. They are just great fun."

There is one other notable absence; you won't have a dog in the new Fable. Fulton bears the brunt of this decision on his own shoulders; "There are some folks on the team that were relishing me getting this question because I cut it a while back." He says it was for "development reasons," but admits that "there are a substantial number of people on the team who have yet to forgive me for that decision." At least we'll have a horse.

Fable will launch in fall 2026. I'm tentatively excited; Playground has proven itself a consistent winner with the Forza Horizon series, and while this is a rather distinct departure it feels like a well-chosen studio to lift up the Lionhead legacy.