Well, it's been long, drawn out, and painful, but the slow motion creative train wreck, that has been Lionhead Studios since the release of Fable 3, appears poised to finally grind to a quiet pitiful halt. Microsoft has officially announced that it has canceled Fable: Legends, the 4 vs 1 multiplayer spin off of the titular franchise, that has consistently succeeded in making fans of the 12 year old series say “Huh?” “Ehh?” “The Fu-?” and asking the question “Why aren’t you making Fable 4?” every time it's shown off at an event.
To me, this is good news. Think about it, an Asymmetrical multiplayer game where the player chooses from a cast of pre-made characters with set personalities and abilities, based on a series that became popular for letting the player make their own character. Who is that game even supposed to be for? Microsoft seems to have finally come to a similar conclusion and canceled the troubled project.
http://news.xbox.com/2016/03/07/microsoft-studios-changes-uk-denmark/
However this news also came with the announcement that Microsoft is considering closing down developer Lionhead Studios as well (But Lionhead is basically closed already). Which personally has me worried about the future of the Fable series. But while closing Lionhead doesn’t automatically mean the end of the series, (since they could have another studio develop future sequels) neither MS, nor Lionhead have shown in the last half decade, that they understand what made the first two Fable games special, and haven’t yet developed a game that builds on those strengths. If this is the case, perhaps they no longer see any value in Fable as a brand.
But the record breaking success of Witcher 3, and Fallout 4 in 2015 proved that there is still a massive audience for single player only, open world RPGs, and if Microsoft and Lionhead follow these 5 easy steps, Fable is likely to succeed as well.
Step 1: Make Fable 4 a Reboot
Part of what makes the first Fable my favorite game in the series, was its bright, beautiful world based on European fairy tales, overflowing with magic and monsters. The world felt positively saturated with magic, which made it a joy to be in, and explore.
Fable 2 decided to throw most of that out the window, putting us into a darker, more dreary world that had destroyed a Hero's Guild that had grown corrupt. I will admit, I can’t fault them for trying something different, and they had a good idea, but as a result the world was just a little bit less fun to explore, and had a bit less potential to surprise. Fable 3 made this even worse by stripping even more of the magic out, as Albion entered an age of industrialization and almost every enemy was a humanoid with a sword, with almost no monsters in sight.
Fable 4 needs to wipe the slate clean, get rid of the now muddled continuity, and start fresh with a world bursting at the seams with magic, monsters, heroes and villains.
Step 2: Keep Legends’ Art Style
The one unquestionably good thing about Legends, were its graphics. A bright and colorful world with well designed characters. It’s the art style of the original games reaching its full potential thanks to the power of modern consoles. Seriously just look at this trailer, its gorgeous!
Step 3: Steal the combat from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
One thing that Fables 1-3 struggled with was combat. They gave you the choice between 3 Archetypal fantasy combat styles that were basically Knight, Rogue and Mage, with Magic usually proving to be overpowered. It all worked, but it was always a bit clunky and not the most fun to play. Then in Fable 3 they tried to “Streamline” the combat mechanics in one of the few instances where player’s accusations of developers “Dumbing It Down” were warranted. Trying to give players choice in their combat style while simultaneously making the combat easier to execute resulted in Fable 3’s combat being boring to play.
Then in February 2012 a little game called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning came out. It was an open world RPG with 3rd person combat that felt like Devil May Cry or God of War. It also gives you the same three combat archetypes that Fable does.But, the controls were easy to learn and there was still depth with the way you could combine powers from different talent trees to make a unique fighting style. But most importantly the combat made you feel powerful, it made you feel like a hero. Sadly Reckoning’s publisher went under, and no one has iterated on its genius combat system. Fable has the chance to do that with Fable 4
Step 4:
Have an open world more along the lines of Witcher 3 or Skyrim instead of the narrow corridor zones of 1-3.
Fable 1 and 2 were fun to explore, but ultimately the world’s were pretty small and ironically didn’t offer much choice in how they could be explored. Which was fine, Lionhead still made two fun games with the resources available to them. But by Fable 3, the small game world became boring with all of the magic stripped out of it. More recent Fantasy RPGs like Witcher 3 and Skyrim have demonstrated how to create an RPG open world that the player can explore however they choose. It doesn’t need to be exactly like those games, but putting less emphasis on a primary plot, and giving players a larger world where they can be whatever kind of hero should be a major part of Fable 4.
Step 5:
Don't make all the moral choices so clearly Black and White.
This has been a problem with other series like Mass Effect or Infamous, where your only real choice is be Fully Good or Fully Evil, with no incentive to take some kind of middle ground, or alternate path. It became especially problematic in the Fable games where the only real choice the players had was to act like a Heavenly Saint who helps everyone in need, or the spawn of the Devil who leaves trails of dead puppies and spilled ice cream cones in their wake. Fable 4 needs to let the player take a road somewhere in between light and darkness.
However! This does not mean they should try to be like the Witcher series, where many times there is no right or wrong choice to make. Albion needs to be a world full of righteous heroes and malevolent villains, but it also needs to have characters that fill out the spectrum in between, and give the player the choice to be one of them.
So there you go Microsoft, there is a fool proof way to bring Fable back out from Franchise Purgatory. Now go out there and do it! Yeeeeeaaaaah! Wooo........*Sigh* R.I.P. Lionhead, you never got the chance you really deserved.
