Every now and then we get a video game that is so groundbreaking that it serves as inspiration for a host of other games. This can be in the form of a particular mechanic, art style, and in some cases even an entire genre. For example, FromSoftware's Dark Souls series is responsible for the birth of the Soulslike genre.
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Fable shows that comedy games can benefit from an SSD
In games, it's much harder to pull off a cutaway gag.
So when a developer is working on a new game, it's not uncommon to look to such popular titles for inspiration. One such upcoming game is Fable. We know next to nothing about it, other than what we've seen in the trailer and that it's slated to launch in 2025. As the launch window slowly approaches, it seems like more details are being revealed.
Fable takes a lot from the Witcher series
It seems that Fable will take a lot of inspiration from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While we've heard hints of this before, it was reiterated by Jez Corden on the Xbox Two podcast. Corden claims to have seen Alpha footage of the game and was impressed by how “amazing” it looked at such an early stage.
“You can tell this game has CD Projekt Red DNA,” Corden said on the podcast. “So, the developers, Playground Games, they picked up a bunch of developers [like] CD Projekt Red, and I think they picked up the battle designer, and you can kind of say that, you know. I'm not saying it's 100 percent one-to-one with the Witcher, because it's not.
“But you can kind of see that melee—the kind of pirouettes and twists and turns and the seamless chop and slack of a performance, which looks really, really cool—all that stuff is there. It looks super polished. , it looks super good out, and if this was early gameplay, it probably even looks better now than from what I was shown.
He went on to say that the battle involved quite a mix of weapon types – seamlessly with swords, bows and spells. There was also reportedly a spell that allowed players to lift up enemies and knock them to the ground, like the Force powers in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
As for the enemies themselves, Corden said he saw one that looked like a giant chicken, and also a werewolf. The fight reportedly looked very fierce and involved a number of weapons, including a giant club. The animation quality and acting also looked really good for an alpha build of the game. However, he stated that he has no idea when the footage came from, or who the original source is.
It is not the first time that Fable has been compared to The Witcher. Last March we reported that there was talk of the game's inspiration, and “The term 'Witcher-like' was thrown around a lot”.
Fables (2025)
Fable 4 is an upcoming RPG for Xbox and PC. It will reboot the classic series, this time developed by Playground Games – best known for their work on the Forza series of racing games.
