GB Feature: Fable III PC Review

Lionhead’s third installment to the Fable franchise is finally available on the PC, so we’ve taken it upon ourselves to weigh in on its strengths and weaknesses. You’ll also discover that we’ve spent some time on the Traitor’s Keep and Understone Quest Pack DLCs within the article:

For the record, I had no problems stemming from the Games for Windows integration whatsoever. Additionally, there were a few bugs I ran into, including very occasional audio skipping, and what seemed like a memory leak, which caused performance to drop until I Alt+Tabbed or restarted the game, but I’m not sure blame for the latter lies on Lionhead or NVIDIA and AMD for their video drivers. Some users have also reported save corruption, but this never happened to me. While the PC version does have some additions made exclusively for it, it’s also the same as the Xbox 360 version in terms of content, as well, so as far as I can tell no bugs have been fixed in the transition to PC, but these are fairly minor and mostly come down to occasional issues in level geometry like flickering textures. Whether or not Lionhead and Microsoft are committed to fixing up the few remaining problems for the PC remains to be seen, but those issues that do exist are documented fairly extensively by players. In my opinion they are not game-killing, but they do tarnish what could be one of the better PC ports I’ve seen lately.

As mentioned, The Lost Chapters came with a whole lot of extra content, effectively serving as an expansion pack on top of the base Fable campaign. This, however, is 2011, and we are in the age of DLC. As such, Fable III has not received any such expansion pack, but rather a collection of add-ons, some more worthwhile than others (anything from new outfits and hairstyles to additional quests). While the Xbox 360 Collector’s Edition DLC is included with the PC version, and several free DLC packs have been released for download, unfortunately PC players will have to shell out money for the two more substantial updates, the Understone Quest Pack and Traitor’s Keep. I downloaded and played both of these for this review, but I’ll keep things short and to the point. The first DLC, Understone, despite its lower price, is underwhelming in the extreme, and does not feature sufficient new content to warrant purchase by most players, taking only about an hour to blaze through, including its mini-games, one of which is recycled from the main story. Traitor’s Keep, meanwhile, takes place after the main story has been completed, and is of far higher quality. Dealing with a revolt at Albion’s top-secret compound for the most dangerous and insane criminals in the land, it features several new full-sized areas to explore, is a decent length, and feels every bit as well-made as the rest of the main game. Microsoft really missed an opportunity to sweeten the pot by including the bigger DLC packs with the PC version of the game, but as it stands Fable III is still very much a complete game even without them, and for players who enjoy the game, I can recommend that Traitor’s Keep is a very solid addition.