"Dudes, this box art rules!" We would have been satisfied to leave it at that after sharing Fable 3's regal cover art with you, had it not been for the curious stamp at the top: "Only on Xbox 360 & Windows."
Since this official Microsoft-provided art has now been retracted (from Game Press), you're either looking at an elaborate labeling error or an accidental announcement of Fable 3 heading to PC. The former seems likely, but we'll do our best to be royal pains and keep bugging Microsoft for a proper answer. At the time of writing, neither Microsoft US nor Microsoft UK had responded to our calls.
#clips
I may be slightly biased in saying this, as I have British family, but games - or, at least fantasy games - always sound more professional to me when they hire a good, English cast to handle the voice work. More »
We can't imagine anybody being a better butler than John Cleese. It's not that we've always pictured a life of indentured servitude for the man -- we're just excited by the prospect of hanging out with him in Fable 3. After you've seen the latest Lionhead dev diary, you'll wish you had your own, luxurious Jasper immediately.
Oh, there's also talk of the game's new 3D graphical interface -- but is that played by John Cleese? We thought not.
You may not have been too disappointed that Fable 2 wasn't full of animals (filthy, stinking animals), but Lionhead's Lead Artist John McCormack was, and he tells Beauty of Games that he's making up for it with the next game. "The lack of animals in the Fable franchise is always something that has bothered me," he says, and so in Fable 3, "we've built bats, crows, rabbits, ducks, robins, vultures, lizards, rats, butterflies, moths, insect swarms, dogs, fireflies, geese and we even started on a cow."
Rest assured that animals won't be the only new part of the experience, though -- McCormack also says his team is hard at work on incorporating the new Industrial aesthetic into the game's buildings, morphed weapons and NPCs as well. He says he's not sure whether all of those animals will eventually make it into the finished product, but obviously we hope so -- vultures need to be Touched, too.
#fable
Sir Ben Kingsley, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Gandhi in the 1982 film of the same name, will soon be playing a role a little less historical, landing a part in Lionhead's upcoming Fable III. More »
Maybe you thought that the Fable 3 voice cast couldn't get any classier, you'd be wrong. But how, you ask? The game already packs the wonderful John Cleese and the inimitable Stephen Fry, you say. Well, guess what? Ben Kingsley, that's what. Oscar-winning, Gandhi-playing, Ben Kingsley. The actor informed CVG that he'll be portraying the "king of Mist Peak," whom Kingsley described as "a wonderful wizard character." He added that acting in video games is "very demanding."
And with that, maybe it's time to forgive Mr. Kingsley for Bloodrayne. Then again, maybe we should wait to see how that Prince of Persia movie turns out.
#xbox360
The cooperative multiplayer mode in Fable II may not have been the role-playing game's highest point—it arrived late and had some notable limitations—but developer Lionhead Studios is giving birth to less compromised sequel, including the ability to get "intimate" online. More »
Still not sold on Fable 3 as an iterative improvement over the last game in the series? Well, you might just change your mind when you hear about the game's latest feature, which was recently revealed in the latest Official Xbox Magazine: When you're not busy building a monarchy and roaming the wild landscape of Albion, you'll "be able to enjoy, ahem, intimate moments with your co-op friend and eventually produce offspring together," according to the mag.
We hope this isn't another one of those "no, really, the trees will grow" scenarios, because this is quite possibly the sexiest thing we've ever heard. Sure, it might lead to some horrifically awkward Xbox Live voice messages, but its raw sexiness is undeniable.
It's a beautiful day to be a Joystiq reader and a fan of Peter Molyneux. After years of extensive testing and the (as it turns out, unnecessary) deaths of millions of lab animals, we've finally perfected the Peter Molyneux Quote Realisticator 2007 (sorry about the name, we had to delay it a few times). So now, when Peter Molyneux tells IGN that Fable 3 will feature "the greatest cast that any computer game has ever had," you know it's the equivalent of a regular person saying, "Fable 3 has a pretty darn good cast."
Actually, we're a little surprised his praise is so mild. John Cleese as your butler? Stephen Fry as Reaper? What does it take to impress you, man?
#fableiii
Jonathan Ross, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in broadcasting, first mentioned role-playing game Fable III in May 2009. He said he "got asked" to do voice in Fable III. What was his answer? More »
#fable
Upcoming Xbox 360 RPG Fable III may be following in the footsteps of its predecessor and going "episodic", according to comments from the game's creator, Peter Molyneux. More »
#hollywood
Peter Molyneux, the game designer behind the Fable franchise, was invited on the set of Hollywood motion picture Avatar. He didn't quite "get it". More »
#fableiii
One brilliant thing about video games is that they can react to what players do and have multiple endings. Books can't do that. Movies can't, not even Clue. Many in gaming argue for branching storylines. Here's an argument against: More »
During a one-on-one conversation with writer Frank Rose at South by Southwest titled "The Emotion Engine: Can a Video Game Speak to the Heart?," Lionhead's Peter Molyneux offered some early details on the episodic potential of Fable 3, citing the serial nature of Charles Dickens' novels.
He began by comparing Fable 3's industrial setting to the mid-19th century setting of Charles Dickens' London, calling it a "brilliant time to set a game." "You look at the characters and the world that someone like Charles Dickens developed and you think, 'Well, it would be brilliant to feel like you're walking through that Dickensian version of London with a little bit of darkness.' Those novels, if you don't know them, are very, very dark," Molyneux explained. "They're written in a way that breaks the story up into these episodes. So why don't we do a similar sort of thing?"
Though Molyneux told Joystiq just last week that Fable 2's episodic experiment had been "massively successful," he stopped short of promising similar functionality for Fable 3; however, yesterday, he seemed to suggest they would be doing just that. "So what we're thinking with Fable 2 to start off with, and with Fable 3, we're going to give you the first big episode and then allow you to continue to download new episodes," Molyneux said. "And that's analogous to the way Charles Dickens wrote his books."
Asked if he would be developing these episodes "as you go along," Molyneux responded, "This is the new world of computer games where in fact, a lot of us are now saying, is, 'If we can have a really strong digital relationship with people then that means you don't have to entirely finish your game or your universe or your experience on release.'" Now, before you get upset, appreciate that Molyneux knows how "strange and bizarre" that sounds, so he's got two examples to help you better understand.
#gdc
Peter Molyneux was smarting last week from the fact that half of the people who played his studio's last game, Fable II, didn't bother with half of its depth. People didn't even change their (virtual) clothes. His fault. More »
#gdc
This batch of Fable III screenshots from the Game Developers Conference are indeed all mine, at least in the 'underground area where ore is extracted from the earth' definition of the word. More »
Peter Molyneux lives a fearful life. Ever since he promised the moon and failed to deliver with the original Fable, he has been relentlessly trailed by PR ninjas. We were expecting a special Fable 3 reveal during GDC, and Molyneux obliged, but not before checking with PR. During the Fable 3 panel at GDC, Molyneux said that people have referred to Fable as a "Monty Python-esque" game, and so Lionhead decided to recruit John Cleese himself to play your butler in Fable 3.
He noted that Lionhead has record a "vast amount of AI dialogue" for Cleese, whose job as the butler is to "big you up, in a slightly sarcastic way." Unfortunately, Molyneux stated that the rights for Cleese's voice hadn't been secured "just yet," so we didn't get to see Cleese implemented in the demo. He's definitely a perfect fit for Fable though, and we can only thankful that he hasn't run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
There was an interesting moment during the Q&A session of Peter Molyneux's Fable 3 panel at GDC this year. When asked if Fable 3 will be released on PC, Molyneux was cagey though he did say that he would 'love' to see the game appear on the platform. He was careful not to raise the ire of Microsoft's "PR police people ... with sniper rifles," but went on to state, "I can say, mystically, that I love the PC." He continued, "I love what's happening to the PC, and I would love to see the Fable franchise on the PC." He concluded that he would want to make sure it was "a truly amazing experience on the PC and that, you know, it's brilliant."
Hardly a confirmation of any actual plans for a PC version of Fable 3 -- and it should be noted that Fable 2 has remained exclusive to the Xbox 360 since 2008 -- but it's clear that Lionhead would jump at the opportunity if given the chance.
Speaking during GDC, Peter Molyneux highlighted Lionhead's strategy for Fable 3, specifically noting that a franchise will die if it fails to grow. "If we don't grow as a franchise, If Fable doesn't get bigger as a franchise," said Molyneux, "then it will eventually die." Lionhead is "very happy" with the success of Fable so far, with Molyneux stating that the original Fable sold "about 3 million" copies, while Fable 2 moved approximately 3.5 million.
He added that he hopes that 25-30 percent more people will play Fable 3, explaining Lionhead's plans to craft Fable 3 as more of an action-adventure title -- a genre which tends to perform better than RPGs. The overall goal for Lionhead is to sell more than five million copies of Fable 3. According to Molyneux, Fable 3 needs to sell that many in order to "be part of the big boys, the big blockbusters."
How will Lionhead rope in that many new customers? Read our full coverage of the Fable 3 GDC panel to find out.
click to visit the new Albion
Peter Molyneux has made it clear that Fable 3 is ditching as much of the 2D interface from Fable 2 as possible. Speaking at GDC, he finally showed us exactly how Lionhead will achieve this. According to Molyneux, Microsoft user research revealed that a majority of Fable 3 players understood fewer than half of the features in the game. "We're creating content that people literally don't care about," said Molyneux.
To help rectify this, Fable 3's menu system is managed entirely from within the game world. When players pause the game, their character is instantly warped to a chamber with different rooms that serve different functions. Molyneux specifically demonstrated the dressing room, where players will change clothes. Molyneux contrasted the process with that of Fable 2, in which changing outfits was like "going in the morning and choosing index cards to choose what you wear."
During his panel at GDC 2010, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux revealed that Fable III will include some form of Twitter support. Molyneux discussed the game's experience system, noting that the most important thing in Fable III is to acquire followers. We've heard that before, but then Molyneux said he was going to give the audience a "clue" about a new feature, but that he wasn't allowed to say more. Said Molyneux, "I Twitter now and, you know, I've got followers on Twitter. That's an interesting mechanic, and we integrate that into the Fable experience."
True to his word, Molyneux didn't drop any further hints, but considering that followers are akin to experience points in Fable III, we're assuming @conanobrien will soon rule us all.
#gdc
Monty Python's John Cleese will be your butler in the fall's role-playing game Fable III. Perhaps you are wondering why you will have a butler. More »
#gdc
Slide from Game Developers Conference entitled "What if we move Fable toward an action adventure?" Presented by Fable III creative director Peter Molyneux. Note the fourth bullet point. As a result, Molyneux promises a clearer, more streamlined sequel. More »
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