Playground Games has largely avoided discussing its upcoming reboot ofFablein any concrete terms. Not only has Playground gone without revealing any gameplay, but it has avoided nailing down details onFable’s relationship with the originalFabletrilogy. At the moment, it’s unclear what elements it’ll reuse and what it will reinvent; not even the classic setting of Albion is certain. However, Playground and Microsoft reusing theFableIP suggests that the reboot will still have things in common with the old games. The newFablemay bring back a ton of character concepts, story threads, and themes that carried Lionhead Studios' trilogy.
OneFabletheme that really stands out is family.All three of the originalFablegamesfeature a variety of important characters that are related to the player in some way, rather than making players be a standalone adventurer without a past like some RPGs prefer to do. This angle seems like an easy one to implement in theFablereboot, although if it does so, Playground Games should flip the idea on its head in one way or another. Rather than rehashing theFabletrilogy’s notions of family-driven quests,Fable 4should explore different types of familial relationships.
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Repurposing Fable’s Approach to Family
There’s no denying that blood relations are an important part of theFablefranchise. In the firstFablegame,the player’s sister Theresagets an origin story before becoming one ofFable’s most important characters.Fable 2also includes a significant sister in Rose, whileFable 3pits players against their brother. Additionally, all three of theFableprotagonists are meant to be related by blood, meaning the entire franchise is tied together by one influential family. Aside from these narrative functions, the player’s ability to marry and raise a family has always been a major part of theFablebrand as well.
The newFablegame may seemingly be abandoningthe industrial Albion ofFable 3,but it can still latch ontoFable’s fondness of family-driven narratives in its own way. Telling such a story would be a great way to ground theFablereboot in the original trilogy’s traditions, even if the game experiments with major changes in other departments. However, in order to keep its family elements fresh, theFablereboot should try different angles on the theme. After so much focus on sibling relationships and raising children, theFabletrilogy has left a lot of different types of family relationships untouched.
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Possible Family Elements in Fable 4
Rather than exploring theFableprotagonist’s relationship with a sibling, it might be interesting itFable 4gave players a mission related to a parent of come kind. Whether the parent is an inspiring figure who has gone missing or a tragic adversary, aFablegame exploring the love between a parent and a child could be very compelling. Alternatively, the nextFablegame could build a found family narrative for itself, rather than focusing on the player’s biological family.As players travel across theFableworld, players might forge strong bonds with like-minded individuals, eventually transcending friendship and becoming a family.
TheFablefranchise needs to establish some kind of relationship with the original games, outside of borrowing the name. Change is inevitable, sinceFableis in different hands now, but fans are still expecting something similar to what the original games delivered. A new take on a family relationship would be a great way to acknowledgethe impact of theFabletrilogy. Storytelling has always been a strength of theFablefranchise, so Playground Games is under serious pressure to tell a story that’s worthy of the franchise’s reputation. A combination of traditionalFablestructures with new ideas from Playground could be one road to success.
Fableis in development for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
