Fable has been in development since 2016 and was never cancelled during its lengthy production, according to Playground Games director Ralph Fulton. Speaking to The Guardian, Fulton said the project remained protected by Xbox because the company considers Fable “vital to the DNA of the platform”.
Playground Games became involved with Fable after signing a deal with Xbox in 2017. Fulton said the opportunity immediately became the studio’s priority, explaining that “When Xbox mentioned Fable, every other opportunity dissolved into the background. It was all we could think about.”
The developer then had to build a large team to work on the action RPG, bringing together existing Playground developers with people experienced in the genre. Fulton described building a team from scratch as one of the hardest challenges in game development, particularly with hundreds of people relocating from around the world because of their interest in Fable.
The project has faced a lengthy development period that has included major changes across the games industry, including the shift towards live service games, the COVID-19 pandemic and significant layoffs across Xbox’s parent company.
Despite the extended production, Fulton said Fable remained important internally at Xbox. “I genuinely think Fable is an important game. What has protected us over a long development cycle is that so many people within Xbox view Fable as vital to the DNA of the platform,” he said.
Fulton also argued that the franchise has a distinctive place within the wider games industry, adding, “I would go a step further and say it’s important to video games as a whole. It offers a combination of elements that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Fable is being developed as an open-world action RPG set in a reimagined version of Albion. The reboot is scheduled to launch on February 23, 2027, for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S.
