The Fable reboot in development at Playground Games has been in the works for a long, long time, and part of what’s “protected” the game during the lengthy development cycle was that the franchise is so closely associated with Xbox. That’s according to Fable game director Ralph Fulton, who told The Guardian, “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,” Fulton said. “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.”
While Fable may have been “protected,” other Xbox games and studios cannot say the same. Throughout Fable’s development period, Xbox shuttered studios, canceled games, and laid off staff. The latest round of cuts came this year, with Microsoft trimming 1,600 jobs, with another 1,600 layoffs still to come. Another dormant Xbox franchise, Perfect Dark, attempted its own reboot, but Microsoft canceled the game and shuttered its developer.
