Fable III: Difference between revisions
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Players can migrate their savegames from ''Fable II'' to ''Fable III''. This allows the player's actions from ''Fable II'' to impact on the world of ''Fable III'' as their parent in the third game is their Hero from the second game. This was hinted at in the ''Fable II'' downloadable content ''See the Future''.<ref name="OXM 52 Announcement">{{cite journal|last=Channell|first=Mike|date=2009-09-22|title=Fable III|journal=Official Xbox Magazine UK|issue=52|pages=36–41|publisher=Future Publishing|accessdate=2009-09-25}}</ref> |
Players can migrate their savegames from ''Fable II'' to ''Fable III''. This allows the player's actions from ''Fable II'' to impact on the world of ''Fable III'' as their parent in the third game is their Hero from the second game. This was hinted at in the ''Fable II'' downloadable content ''See the Future''.<ref name="OXM 52 Announcement">{{cite journal|last=Channell|first=Mike|date=2009-09-22|title=Fable III|journal=Official Xbox Magazine UK|issue=52|pages=36–41|publisher=Future Publishing|accessdate=2009-09-25}}</ref> |
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Set decades after the events of Fable II, Albion is ruled by a tyrant-king called Logan who is in fact the player's brother. While the player is attempting to overthrow the current king of Albion, |
Set decades after the events of Fable II, Albion is ruled by a tyrant-king called Logan who is in fact the player's brother. While the player is attempting to overthrow the current king of Albion, he or she needs to gather support from the people. However, depending on the amount of control the tyrant exerts over a region, initial support can be hard to gather. To encourage citizens to join the revolution, the player must make promises to improve their lives when they have the throne. These promises can affect anything from a single individual's life to affecting the entire population or a class group within it. After the player has gained control of the crown, he or she has the opportunity to carry out or ignore the promises they made that allowed them to achieve their position.<ref name="OXM 52 Announcement"/> |
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As [[Peter Molyneux]], Lionhead's Creative Director, explains: |
As [[Peter Molyneux]], Lionhead's Creative Director, explains: |
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Revision as of 19:43, 16 May 2010
| Fable III | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Lionhead Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Microsoft Game Studios |
| Designer(s) | Peter Molyneux |
| Platform(s) | Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows (rumored) |
| Release | Q4 2010 |
| Genre(s) | Action RPG, Sandbox |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, Cooperative gameplay, Xbox Live |
Fable III is the third game in the Fable series of action role-playing games developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios and is a semi-direct sequel to Fable II. It is due for release on Xbox 360 in late 2010.
Characters
At Game Developer Conference 2010 it was announced that John Cleese would be playing the Butler called Jasper,[1] Stephen Fry is also confirmed to be returning to voice the character of Reaver, Jonathan Ross is starring as a currently unrevealed role and Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley will also feature as the King of Mist Peak.[2]
Gameplay
Players can migrate their savegames from Fable II to Fable III. This allows the player's actions from Fable II to impact on the world of Fable III as their parent in the third game is their Hero from the second game. This was hinted at in the Fable II downloadable content See the Future.[3]
Set decades after the events of Fable II, Albion is ruled by a tyrant-king called Logan who is in fact the player's brother. While the player is attempting to overthrow the current king of Albion, he or she needs to gather support from the people. However, depending on the amount of control the tyrant exerts over a region, initial support can be hard to gather. To encourage citizens to join the revolution, the player must make promises to improve their lives when they have the throne. These promises can affect anything from a single individual's life to affecting the entire population or a class group within it. After the player has gained control of the crown, he or she has the opportunity to carry out or ignore the promises they made that allowed them to achieve their position.[3]
As Peter Molyneux, Lionhead's Creative Director, explains:
The really strange thing about leadership is that there's a common thread that has existed for centuries in all cultures. Whenever politicians, rebels or juntas are climbing to power they make promises, and very often these promises are not delivered on. We want to give a sense of that, so as you're building up your forces, as you're being a rebel, you will find this opportunity to promise things to get more power. Then after you've become leader, the opportunity to live on those promises has real consequences.
When queried over how the game would work after the player had assumed control of Albion, Molyneux was quick to inform gamespot.com that the game would not become a Theme Park-style management game and that Lionhead would not be returning to its roots making strategy games.[3]
There are rewards for being a self-serving ruler, including a treasury filled with gold piles that grow or diminish based on the player's wealth. The player's in-game family will attempt to pressure the player into selfishly taking money from Albion to maintain and upgrade their castle.[3]
The player is also tasked with dealing with how their society works on a day-to-day basis, such as how to handle crime, poverty, and taxation. Another example is the choice to go to war. While Albion is only a single continent in a much-larger world, Fable III is the second game in the series to expand the playable areas beyond Albion's borders.[3]
Like the character-morphing that defines the series, where the player's character changes appearance based on his or her actions, growing beautiful or ugly based on good and evil actions respectively, Fable III expands that to location-morphing. If the player taxes a region heavily, the people will become visibly poorer, their buildings will start to fall into disrepair and the player will encounter hostility from them if he passes through the area. The example Lionhead gave was the town of Bowerstone: in the time since Fable II Albion has undergone the industrial revolution and Bowerstone has become "a mass of Victorian-era inspired churning industry," with the skyline being hugely affected by this. During the technological upheaval, however, crime, injustice and poverty have grown and the player can choose to eradicate it or let it continue unchecked. Either way, Albion will grow to reflect the player's decision or lack of.[3]
Molyneux has promised to remove a traditional RPG mechanic from Fable III, the emphasis being on removing "clunkiness" and making the game more accessible.A new system also applies to general interaction, such as to shake someone's hand. Dynamic Touch allows the player to lead someone to a location. Molyneux gave an example of a child trapped in a burning building. The player could go into the house and comfort the child with Expression Touch before using Dynamic Touch to carry the child to safety.[3]
Development
At the beginning of the Gamescon announcement of Fable III, Molyneux stated that the game was taking a different theme compared to the others as he believes the third game in a series to be hard to do correctly. "If all the rules have been established and all you offer is a new story and a handful of locations, people will start to lose interest."[3]
In an interview with OXM UK, he spoke about how Fable was at risk of becoming a generic game where the player started off underpowered and weak but slowly got more powerful after they met the bad guy. After the player killed the bad guy, the credits would roll. Believing that is the formula that applies to many games, he asked why games "end at potentially the most excited bit?" It was this that formed the basis of Fable III, where the player can overthrow the tyrant before becoming ruler themselves. He stated that it was when the player was ruler that the consequences of "who you are going to be, are you going to be good or evil, cruel or kind" stopped applying only to the player, but affected the entire country.[3]
Molyneux hinted that there may be drawbacks to leaving your castle too often to investigate crimes or fight wars, asking "Are you going to be a king that is the equivalent to Picard in Star Trek? Quite honestly, if the captain of the ship was going down to planets and getting involved in battles I'd be worried because I think he should stay in his chair. But if he chooses to go down and get involved, that's the freedom we give you as a king."[3]
Talking about the inspiration for Fable III, Molyneux said "if in Fable I the inspiration was folklore and in Fable II the inspiration was King Arthur and Robin Hood, then Fable III is definitely the rebels and monarchs – both modern-day and historic."[3]
What's so interesting about that is you look at it and you realise that "Gee, these people who ruled our land up until very recently were actually very creative with their power and abused it and used it in many evil ways." Take Henry VIII, let's just go through some of the things this guy did. Rather than say, "Hey, this marriage is not working out so well," he just decided to completely kill off his wives. Not only did he do that, but to do the deed he just got rid of religion and replaced it with a new one. He also took five percent of the entire tax income – the equivalent of billions of pounds in today's world – and spent on his personal wine cellar, while many people within the country were suffering from starvation and plague. This guy definitely wasn't that nice a guy, and if you write that down he sounds really evil. Does history paint him as being really evil? Not really, it paints him as being a bit of a jolly chap who was quite infatuated with six women. That's fascinating inspiration and we really want to give you the power to be that colourful when you're ruler.
There are also new takes on traditional Fable concepts such as morphing, where you and your weapon change depending on what you do and your alignment. If the Hero kills large amounts of skeletons their weapon will appear to be made of bones, whereas if they go around killing innocent people their weapon will begin to drip with blood.The weapon will also level throughout the game, making it sharper and more deadly. Another example is the "Extreme Emote" system. For example, if someone angers the Hero, they can show them their true nature, with either demonic or angelic wings sprouting out of their back.
Marketing
Shortly before Gamescom 2009, images of famous revolutionaries and quotations appeared on Lionhead's website, causing discussion about what the next game Lionhead were making was. During the press conference of Gamescom, where Fable III was announced by Peter Molyneux, Lionhead had decorated the walls with medieval shields and banners.[3]
Following the BAFTA games awards in March 2009, British presenter Jonathan Ross revealed on his Twitter page that he had been offered a voice part in Fable III. He also went on to say that comedian Charlie Brooker was to lend his voice to the game as well.[4]
References
- ^ http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/107/1076735p1.html
- ^ http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/05/07/fable-3-to-feature-ben-kingsley-as-king-of-mist-peak/
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Channell, Mike (2009-09-22). "Fable III". Official Xbox Magazine UK (52). Future Publishing: 36–41.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ "Fable III revealed by... Jonathan Ross". CVG. 2009-03-11. Retrieved 2009-03-11.