Can Fable IV Redeem the Falling Franchise?

That’s the title of a new editorial on GamingBolt that provides us with a quick history lesson for Lionhead’s Fable franchise before examining the weaknesses present in Fable II and III and how they can be rectified in Fable IV.

Despite some clever menu and level up work-arounds, Fable 3 wasn’t much of an improvement for the series. For what it lacked it in originality, it was still an enjoyable title though. Lionhead began to really nail storytelling with Fable 3, and the plot was more engaging than ever. The one thing that the Fable series really needs to sort out though is the moral decisions. The game constantly forces you to make decisions that alter the game world, but then it reduces the complexity of these situations by labelling the choices as (good) and (evil.) With the first two Fable games this wasn’t such an issue as, quite irritatingly, the moral decisions were fairly basic. (Would you like to save the children or eat them?) That sort of thing. With Fable 3 and its themes on Machiavellian kingship the decisions you made became more intricate and compromising, yet the good and evil points still try to force an objective morality onto the player. This almost ruined the game for me. I may be putting my best interests first, but this might be for any number of reasons. Maybe I needed more money to upgrade my equipment to save more lives later? What if I found the troubled NPC suspicious and didn’t want aid him in any misdeeds? Without being able to explain myself to the game, I find it frustrating when the game then tries to judge the decisions I make. Down with the good and evil points.

If there is going to be a fourth Fable game this will be the first thing that should change. Sometimes hard decisions must be made to insure the needs of the many are served, and Lionhead need to grow up a little bit and understand this before they write the next Fable. Go read some philosophy and widen the mind Molyneux. A little bit of Kant and Kierkegaard on the side and then you can get back to it. Other things the Fable franchise needs to focus on are the mood and tone. Fable had a generally light hearted and jovial overtone that complemented the game’s humour well. The previous 2 Fables have, by contrast, been more brooding. Though it’s more of a personal preference I’d rather like to see the series’ humour come through more in future and take the series back to its roots. Despite my occasional misgivings regarding Fable 2 and 3, I trust Lionhead to keep improving the series’ gameplay, to the point where I don’t really have any improvements to suggest in this department. The main thing that will help Fable 4 along the most would be a little less hype from the get go. Molyneux is a great designer but, if he spent more of his time perfecting his games and less time talking about them, we’d have better gaming experiences to take from the Fable franchise.