Is it all a Fable? The rumours surrounding Fable 4

When you hear the word ‘Fable’ you probably think about a fictitious story. That’s because the very successful Fable video game series hasn’t put out proper story content since the release of Fable 3 in 2010.

Fable was personally one of my favourite games as it was a medieval RPG with many paths you could take including the choice of morality, which I found myself always choosing the path of good. You’re probably wondering why I am bringing up a game series that hasn’t seen the light of day for over 7 years now.  Well rumour has it there may be a Fable 4 in development.

Note: the following is all speculative with nothing official being revealed.

What is Fable?

First of all, the Fable video game series was first developed by LionHead Studios who also created the Black and White series. For a long time they worked with Microsoft under the guidance of Peter Molyneux as they produced three main games with two other games that were not completely connected to the main Fable story.

What happened to Fable?

The LionHead team lost Peter Molyneux in 2012 as he wanted to give his undivided attention to his company 22Cans. After that it was all downhill as they released two Fable games in 2012 that weren’t that popular with Fable: Journey only selling 290,000 copies, then revamping Fable 1 and calling it Fable Anniversary in 2013. But the biggest downfall to LionHead Studios and the final nail in their coffin was the attempted creation of Fable Legends, a game which was meant to take the series to a new, more accessible level that would be made for a larger audience of gamers. Unfortunately, it was not long for the world and though it was announced it 2013 it only lasted until late 2015 before development shut down. The game was gone and that next year so was LionHead Studios.

Fear not Fable fans, there is a silver lining to our story. Early 2017 Phil Spencer, the boss of Xbox, mentioned in a Tweet the Fable IP wasn’t dead and still had places to go. That set off a lot of gamers as they sponged the internet for more information.

What’s the possible future?

There were rumours that Microsoft was looking to employ developers on a new large medieval open world game. It has also been pointed out that the original creator, Peter Molyneux, had not brought any new content out of 22Cans since 2016 because he was potentially signed on to Microsoft’s new project. Molyneux even mentioned in an interview with IGN that he too had heard the rumours surrounding the return of the Fable series and commented on the accusation of sources about a UK Studio taking over the production. Monlyneux then went on to talk about the series, regretting the massive time jump between the mainline games and hinted about a prequel for Fable 1 containing the story of how The Guild came to be. Fable 4 conversely was meant to touch on the future with more folk law such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Jack the Ripper.

As Far as Fable 4 goes, all we have to go on are a pile of coincidences and puzzle pieces that fit if you put them in the right angle. Unfortunately, there have been no official announcements and I don’t think we will hear them for at least a year, if it’s all to be believed.