Fable Legends Was Far From a Disaster

Eurogamer’s Martin Robinson penned an interesting look at the strengths (and weaknesses) of Fable Legends, Lionhead’s free-to-play co-op/PvP-focused action-RPG that was cancelled with the proposed closure of the studio. Here’s an excerpt on the art:

Legends’ Albion was a beautiful construct in the finest Fable mould; homely, colourful and with a little cider-drunk swagger. (I’ll admit to being more absorbed by it than most. Full disclosure time: for a short while last year I helped put together a book on the art of Fable Legends, and prolonged exposure to the homespun fairy-tales that made up this take on the series meant I very quickly became smitten by it all)

If you ever took a walk through Brightlodge, the tumbledown town that acted as Legends’ hub-world, I reckon you’d see why. The central square bustled with citizens throwing out seemingly endless lines of bawdy dialogue, while down a set of ivy-shrouded stairs a bucolic view of a forest-lined lake waited to be thirstily drunk by admiring eyes. Move beyond the town’s borders and there stood Rosewood, its thick canopies of trees dappled by dusty light, or the shadowed corners of Darkwood. Albion’s always been a wonderful place to escape to, and its Fable Legends incarnation was no exception. Unreal Engine 4 could take some of the credit, but it’s the artists who deserve the lion’s share of the applause for ensuring Fable Legends was absolutely gorgeous.

What characters, too! Brightlodge is busy with incidental dialogue, but the main cast were drunk with detail: the way Evienne, a youthful, wilfully ragged spin on the lady of the lake, was dragged around by her sword, Leech the surgeon’s macabre gait or the cocksure swing of Sterling in his gloriously pompous brand of combat. To see one of them emoting in the town square of Brightlodge and drawing in a small crowd of admirers, all that beautiful art coming together in one staggering whole, was to see the next-gen Fable so many of us thirsted for.