Fable Fans Are Hopefully Closer to the Next Game Than the Last One

Fable's reboot seems like it was a long time coming. There hasn't been a new core installment in the Fable franchise since 2010, which is an awfully long drought. Technically, Fable Fortune is the most recent installment in the franchise, but unfortunate the digital trading card game from 2017 has since been shut down. There really isn't any more representation for Fable out there anymore. Thankfully, Fable has found a new home in the hands of Playground Games since Lionhead Games' closure. Rumors floated around about a franchise revival for a couple years, but now fans know for sure that a reboot is coming.

Now the question is when the Fable reboot will release. Playground Games has shown almost nothing about the game since it was officially revealed, and so Fable's state of development is mostly up to conjecture. It's entirely possible that Fable won't be out for a great many years, which would be an awful disappointment for fans. Seeing as the community has waited a decade for a new mainline Fable game, fans aren't exactly eager to wait another two to three years for Fable to come out. Unfortunately, between Fable's mysterious status and Microsoft's new habit of early announcements, it could be a long time before Fable comes out.

Even if it wasn't exactly a traditional Fable game, Fable Fortune remains the best recent touchstone for the franchise. After all, it started out as Lionhead's handiwork, and even after the studio closed, many of its developers kept working on Fable Fortune. This card game first opened its doors to early access players in the summer of 2017, and then it released fully in February 2018. That means it's been about three years since Fable fans have seen any sign of life from the franchise, which isn't too long, even if it's been much longer since a normal Fable game came out.

However, the announcement of the Fable reboot isn't the same as a new Fable game coming out three years later. Under normal circumstances, it'd make sense that a new Fable game could be made in the three years between now and Fable Fortune's release. That's not quite the case. The Fable IP spent a couple years being handed from studio to studio, and only now does it seem to be solidly under Playground Games' control. That kind of instability explains why the Fable reboot's announcement doesn't come with a release date. It probably still has a lot of development ahead of it.

Ideally, that won't slow the game down too much. Playground Games isn't a big enough studio to have a ton of projects to manage at a time, so it'll ideally be pretty focused on releasing Fable on time. On the other hand, if it's going to be more than a year or two before Fable comes out, then it seems like the game should've stayed a secret for now. Fable's drought has been so difficult and protracted that it needs to come out soon and hit the ground running. It's facing too much competition from other fantasy RPGs to linger in a long development and make its fans anxious.