It hasn’t been that long since Lionhead Studios opened up a brand new forum for the Fable franchise. And considering the fact that we haven’t seen a Fable game for quite some time now (Fable: The Journey arrived last year and Fable 3 in 2010), the new Fable forums have already become a hot destination for anything Fable and, of course, the potential release of Fable 4 being the hottest topic.
It isn’t that major a surprise that Lionhead is actually looking to make the next Fable game after Peter Molyneux, who announced that he will be leaving Lionhead and Microsoft after the completion of Fable: The Journey, stated earlier that Lionhead Studios had plans for the fourth and fifth main series installments.
However, one major fact that needs to be pointed out here is that the forums have opened up just before the start of this year’s E3. So naturally, the first question that pops up in mind is why now? And the answer being Lionhead already has some major plans for the E3 and those plans point toward anything related to the Fable franchise.
While the prospects of a new Fable has been making rounds on the Internet for a while, as far as details and in-game features are concerned, we are still clueless as to what we can expect. And although we have been picking up or coming across a number of speculations related to the game, there’s nothing that solid that we can hold on to.
However, there’s always the possibility of expecting features from a game, especially after you’ve played everything that’s related to the franchise and you eyes are all set to notice the new stuff, if any introduced in the later titles.
As always, we are expecting a bit more from the next Fable and here are the five most anticipated changes we want introduced. But make note that developers may think otherwise.
Inflow of Character Customization: Characters are always one of the major parts of any title because they are the ones who carry the story forward. And equally important is the ability to customize characters.
Sadly, yet surprisingly, this is one of the areas where the Fable franchise misses out on, as far as new age RPGs are concerned. While we don’t really know as to why this is so, maybe the customization option didn’t fit in the picture, but the new Fable would be an absolute treat if the developers did decide to spend a bit of time on this.
While the game does indeed already has character customization in some sorts, in the form costume changes and other items that we usually find in the in-game shops, it’s still not the real deal.
Many will feel that this might not be that big a deal but as full time gamers will probably tell you, the simple option of having your character look the way you want can create a strong bond between the gamer and the game. And that’s a step toward title popularity and eventually, financial ambitions.
Advanced Co-op Gameplay: if there’s one thing that’s the need of the hour for the Fable franchise is the need for the in-game characters to interact more with each other.
Now a lot of fans will say that we already have co-op in the game and it was first introduced via Fable 2 and then enhanced with the arrival of Fable 3. However, there’s not much to choose from the franchise as far as real co-op is discussed.
At this point, it needs to be said that the franchise did make a jump from the floating ghost heads showing up in-game in Fable 2 to a more enhanced version of that in Fable 3. However, that expected punch was missing, and Lionhead has Fable 4 to make amends.
The developers just need to let us do a bit more when we are interacting with other players across the in-game world.
Open World Please: Talking about the in-game world of Fable, why isn’t the franchise already showcasing the real definition of an open world?
Truthfully, Fable has always looked like a game that could so much more with an open world gameplay structure. I mean, the possibilities would be endless. Of course, there are a few ways and roads that you can take while in the game, but those are just meant to complete quests and even they will eventually lead you to your destination, even though you want to hang out and check out some more for a while.
All we ask is to roam around Fable’s world for a tad bit long in the hopes of finding something new, and this could, in the process, serve as a catalyst for the game eventual growth.
