Fable is an action role-playing video game and the first in the Fable series. It was created for the Xbox, Windows, and macOS by Big Blue Box Studios, a smaller team working for Lionhead Studios. Microsoft Studios published the game. The original version for the Xbox was released in September 2004. A longer version, called Fable: The Lost Chapters, was released for the Xbox and Windows in September 2005. A macOS version, developed by Robosoft Technologies and published by Feral Interactive, came out in March 2008 after more than two years of delays caused by legal issues.
The game takes place in a fantasy world named Albion. Players control an unnamed hero who joins the Heroes Guild after his family is killed in a bandit attack on his hometown. After leaving the guild, players choose whether the hero will follow a path of goodness or one of darkness.
The game was originally called Project Ego and involved over 150 people during its development. Russell Shaw composed the game’s music, and Danny Elfman wrote the opening theme. The game was highly expected, partly because Peter Molyneux, a co-founder of Lionhead Studios, promoted it enthusiastically. It was first planned for the Dreamcast but moved to the Xbox after the Dreamcast was no longer in production. The game supported a feature called Live Aware through Xbox Live. Today, it is supported again on Xbox online servers called Insignia.
Critics generally praised Fable for its gameplay and design, though some features promised during development were not included. It was the best-selling game in September 2004 and sold over two million copies by 2006. Two sequels followed: Fable II in 2008 and Fable III in 2010. A reboot is currently being developed by Playground Games. In February 2014, a high-definition version of the game, called Fable Anniversary, was released for the Xbox 360 and Windows. This version included The Lost Chapters.
Gameplay
Fable is a role-playing video game where players control their character from a third-person perspective, meaning players view the character from the side, like watching a movie. The main character, called The Hero of Oakvale, can talk to people, use objects, and fight enemies. The goal of the game is to complete missions called quests that help move the story forward. Players can also choose to complete optional quests, which are not required to finish the game.
Most quests are found at a central place called the Heroes' Guild. Required quests, which are important for the story, have a gold symbol. Optional quests are marked with a silver symbol and can be completed in any order. Some quests allow players to choose sides, such as helping evil characters like bandits or good characters like traders and guards. Players can also make bets after accepting a quest, risking some of the reward gold for a chance to gain more if they succeed, such as completing the quest without taking damage or doing it while wearing no clothes. Gold can be used to buy weapons and items, while renown affects how townspeople react to the Hero. Heroes also earn trophies for their victories, which can be shown to townspeople to gain more renown.
Players can fight using close combat weapons like swords and maces, or distant weapons like longbows and crossbows. They can also learn and use spells to strengthen their abilities, avoid harm, or attack enemies. As players complete quests or defeat enemies, they earn general experience and experience specific to the type of attack used—melee, ranged, or magic. These experiences can be used at the Heroes’ Guild to improve attributes. General experience can be used to upgrade all attributes, while strength experience can only improve Physique, Health, and Toughness. Skill experience can only improve Speed, Accuracy, and Guile. Will experience can be used to increase magic power or learn and improve spells, which are divided into three types: Attack Spells, Surround Spells, and Physical Spells. During combat, a combat multiplier increases as the Hero hits enemies. If the Hero is hit, the multiplier decreases.
The game world includes towns where players can do activities unrelated to fighting. Heroes can buy items like beer kegs or grain sacks and sell them in other towns for money. Towns are also places to buy clothing, weapons, and other items. Some towns have houses for sale, which Heroes can buy, furnish, or rent out for gold. Heroes can also marry men or women in each town.
A Hero’s actions determine their alignment, which measures how good or evil they are. Good actions, like saving villagers or killing monsters, earn good points, while bad actions, like killing innocent people or breaking laws, earn evil points. Eating certain foods can also affect alignment—eating tofu earns good points, while eating crunchy chicks (which are assumed to still be alive) earns evil points. Players can pray at temples to change their alignment: donating to the Temple of Avo gives good points, while giving gifts to the Chapel of Skorm gives evil points. Alignment affects how townspeople react to the Hero and their appearance. A Hero with a strong positive alignment has a halo, glowing light, and butterflies around them, while a Hero with a strong negative alignment has red light, glowing eyes, and horns.
Other actions, such as eating too much or drinking too much beer, can cause the Hero to gain weight or become sick and vomit. Clothing worn by the Hero affects their appearance and how townspeople react. Bright clothing makes the Hero look noble and respected, while dark clothing makes them seem evil or threatening. Heroes can also customize their appearance with hairstyles, facial hair, and tattoos. Their attributes influence their look: high Strength increases muscle, high Skill increases height, and high magic creates glowing patterns on their body.
Synopsis
The story of Fable takes place in Albion, a land made up of many small city-states separated by wild plains and forests. Long ago, Albion was ruled by a powerful royal family called the Archons, known as the "Old Kingdom." The first Archon ruled peacefully and successfully, but his power came from a powerful sword called the Sword of Aeons. Over time, the sword began to change the Archon and his kingdom for the worse. By the time the events of the game happen, Albion has become a much less prosperous place. One important group in Albion is the Heroes' Guild, a place where Heroes—skilled warriors who work as thieves, soldiers, guards, and protectors—are trained and taught. The Guild does not judge the actions of its Heroes.
A young boy lives in a village called Oakvale. On his sister’s birthday, bandits attack the village, killing his father and taking his mother and sister hostage. A Hero named Maze saves the boy and trains him at the Heroes' Guild. After years of training, Maze tells the boy to find a blind seeress in a nearby bandit camp. Surprisingly, the seeress is the boy’s older sister, Theresa, who has been taken in by Twinblade, a former Hero who now leads the bandits. After a battle with Twinblade, the boy must choose whether to kill or spare him.
Later, the Hero becomes well-known in Albion and is invited to fight in the Arena, where he meets Jack of Blades, a famous Hero who runs the battles. Jack challenges the Hero to fight his old rival, Whisper, who was once his roommate at the Guild. After defeating Whisper, the Hero must choose to kill or spare her.
The Hero later learns that Jack of Blades destroyed Oakvale during his childhood. With Theresa’s help, the Hero finds his mother alive in a prison called Bargate. During a rescue mission, the Hero is captured and spends over a year in prison before escaping. Maze is revealed to be working with Jack and has kidnapped Theresa. After defeating Maze, the Hero faces Jack in a final battle, during which Jack kills the Hero’s mother. Jack explains that the Sword of Aeons can only be used if it is given the blood of an Archon. At this point, the Hero and Theresa are the only remaining descendants of the Archons. If Jack kills them both, the sword will become even more powerful. The Hero must then decide whether to keep the sword by killing Theresa or to destroy it forever.
Depending on the Hero’s choices and the player’s decisions, the game has four possible endings. After the ending credits, players can continue playing.
In the Lost Chapters special edition, the story continues. After defeating Jack, the Hero must travel to the Northern Wastes to help a Hero named Scythe stop a great evil from returning. If the Hero destroyed the Sword of Aeons, he may obtain a new sword called Avo’s Tear, which is powerful but aligned with light rather than darkness. Avo is said to be a god who represents the light side. After completing quests, the Hero learns that Jack of Blades has returned, now as a dragon. The Hero must defeat Jack again and trap his soul using Jack’s mask. Scythe warns the Hero that the battle is not over and that he must destroy the mask. The Hero then chooses whether to wear the mask—allowing Jack to take over his body—or to destroy the mask and Jack forever.
Development
Fable was the first game made by Big Blue Box, a smaller studio connected to Lionhead, which was founded by Peter Molyneux. The founders of Big Blue Box, Dene and Simon Carter, said their first project had to meet certain requirements to be accepted by game publishers. However, they wanted to create a game that was unique, not just a common type of game. To help pay for the costs of running a new studio, Molyneux suggested that Big Blue Box become a "satellite" of Lionhead. This meant Big Blue Box would receive technology and support from Lionhead, allowing them to focus on making the game. After some difficulty finding a publisher, Microsoft offered Big Blue Box a contract. The Carters said they wanted to create a role-playing game that was unlike any other.
Early in Fable’s development, the game had several working titles, including Wishworld and Project Ego. It took about four years to create, with around 70 developers working on it. The main ideas behind Fable were that the hero’s appearance would change based on his experiences, and the game world would respond to the player’s actions in a way that felt natural.
Peter Molyneux strongly promoted Fable, once saying, “It’s gonna be the best game ever.” Early reviews of Fable noted its unusual humor and atmosphere, which GamePro described as similar to the writing styles of Terry Pratchett or Piers Anthony. This was different from most role-playing games at the time.
Except for the title theme, all of Fable’s music was composed by Russell Shaw, who had previously worked on games by Peter Molyneux, such as Magic Carpet and Black & White. The task of creating Fable’s theme music was given to Danny Elfman. Elfman mentioned that Hollywood composers rarely worked on video games, partly because many game developers wanted music that sounded like an orchestra but was actually made with synthesizers. Elfman insisted on using a real orchestra instead. Shaw said this was more challenging than previous projects because more people were involved, and the complexity of making music interactive became more noticeable.
Release
Fable was released again as Fable: The Lost Chapters for Xbox and Windows PC platforms in September 2005. The game was later made available for macOS by Robosoft Technologies and published by Feral Interactive on March 31, 2008.
The Lost Chapters includes all the content from the original Fable, along with new additions such as new monsters, weapons, spells, items, armor, towns, buildings, and expressions. Players can now give children objects. The story includes nine new areas and sixteen additional quests. Characters like Briar Rose and Scythe, who had minor roles in the original game, now play more important parts in main and side quests. Other changes include a deeper, harsher, and more demonic-sounding voice for the antagonist, Jack of Blades, and the ability to solve the murder mystery of Lady Grey's sister. The updated version also fixed certain glitches, such as the "dig glitch," which caused the player character to move backward when using a shovel, sometimes pushing them through solid objects or trapping them.
Fable was a commercial success when it was first released, selling 375,000 copies in its first week and 600,000 copies in the first month. Sales reached 1.4 million copies by March 2005. By July 2006, the Xbox version had sold 1.5 million copies and earned $58 million in the United States alone. Next Generation ranked it as the 29th best-selling game for PlayStation 2, Xbox, or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country. The game has sold approximately three million copies worldwide.
Reception
Fable received positive reviews from both audiences and critics. The original Xbox version of the game has a combined critic score of 85% on Metacritic and GameRankings. The game won more than fifty awards and became the Xbox's fastest-selling game at the time. During the 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences honored Fable with awards for "Original Musical Composition" and "Character or Story Development." The game also received nominations for "Outstanding Innovation in Console Gaming," "Game Design," and "Gameplay Engineering."
Fable’s combat system was praised by reviewers. Staff from 1UP.com noted that the game offered many ways to fight, making combat feel like its own mini-game. They wrote, "Combat becomes its own minigame, with the goal not solely to beat a foe, but to beat it with skill and get the most from every fight. Slaughter becomes irrelevant, and the fights never become tedious."
Some critics, like Marc Saltzman of USAToday.com, pointed out flaws such as simple character designs. However, he said the game "should satisfy you with its incredible depth, open-ended gameplay, and a solid story that gets even better about half-way through the adventure." Fable was also praised for its concept of free will and the consequences of the Hero’s actions. Other positive aspects included the game’s humorous characters and what The Observer described as a "very British sense of humour, in the style of Monty Python or Douglas Adams."
Some reviewers criticized the short length of the main story. However, many praised the large number of side quests available. One complaint after the game’s release was that it did not include features Peter Molyneux had mentioned during development, such as the Hero’s ability to have children. Molyneux apologized publicly on the official Lionhead forums, saying, "If I have mentioned any feature in the past that, for whatever reason, didn’t make it as I described into Fable, I apologise." This issue was later fixed in Fable II and III, which both include the ability to have children.
The PC and Xbox versions of Fable: The Lost Chapters were also well-received, though they had slightly lower scores on Metacritic and GameRankings compared to the original game. Reviewers like Greg Kasavin of GameSpot said the new content helped keep the game fresh. 1UP.com noted that while the added content did not change the game’s core, it increased the number of quests, addressing complaints about the original game’s short length. GamePro and IGN said the PC version of The Lost Chapters was better than its console version.
In 2005, a Microsoft Game Studios representative said Fable would be part of the next-generation Xbox 360. Sequels Fable II and Fable III were released in 2008 and 2010, respectively.
Lionhead Studios announced Fable Anniversary, a remastered version of Fable: The Lost Chapters, for the Xbox 360 in 2013. It included improved graphics and audio, a new save system, and Achievements. The game was in development for 15 months and featured upgrades such as native widescreen support, more detailed graphics, better lighting, and improved shadows.
Fable Anniversary was released on Steam on September 12, 2014, and included mod support. Reviews were mixed, with some praising the new graphics and others criticizing unresolved bugs from the original game, such as frequent freezing. It received a 68% score on Metacritic.