Rejected Fable 4 Pitch Had Potential

With the recent official saddening closure of the legendary Lionhead Studios we've now begun to get glimpses of history from the studio and what some of their recent projects were. One of those was apparently supposed to be the long awaited Fable 4 which is a title that I've personally been waiting on for what feels like an eternity. According to a recent Eurogamer post (read here) one of the titles that was original pitched from Lionhead before moving onto the recently shut down Fable Legends would have been Fable 4. This game would have started production around 2011/2012 as that's what was mentioned by John McCormack, an Art Director there that left in 2012 noting that this project was part of the reasons why. There was also an issue as noted by McCormack that there was a lot of pressure from Microsoft for their games to profitable and much more so than the first three in the series. After that comment we were then given some details of just what this Fable 4 game might have been.





The aim for this Fable game would have been an R-rated experience taking the series into the next step within the timeline to the Industrial era. Technology would have been improved and the core of Fable which is Bowerstone would have turned more into a London type city. There would have most likely been tram cars and flying machines which would probably match the world quite well. To achieve that highly mature rating there would have been prostitutes and some darker humor as well. It was described with an interesting quote of "We wanted to hit the late Victorian proper far out Jules Verne shit," which definitely gives a good idea of their direction. It was also going to be placed onto Unreal Engine 4 and also feature a Jack the Ripper like character which would have been a Balverine in disguise running around the city streets. All these aspects would have probably turned into a really interesting Fable game that not only continued the series, but could have helped it find purpose moving forward.

While it's known that most Fable titles have had huge promises and not delivered on everything I find that this one seemed a bit more grounded to reality and what was done at the time. Even looking at the time scale, if they would have worked on Fable 4 instead of Fable Legends and given a proper budget it could have been a major Xbox One launch title or a solid late generation Xbox 360 title. Even discussing the whole concept of this game with my friend this morning we both found that it would have been great to explore. We've been fans of this series for such a long time and it's terrible to know that even if they begin development immediately we won't see another Fable title for quite awhile. It's also rather puzzling that they didn't make Fable Legends as more of a side project and then pooled resources from the titles. While there isn't anything we can do at this point, it's always interesting to take a look at what was and to learn where Xbox might be headed in the future. This being in regards to focusing on games as a platform and taking the Fable Legends route instead of a proper Fable 4 entry. We'll most likely see Fable again as Microsoft had held onto the IP, but I imagine it may be a reboot or something entirely different from what we've seen in the past from Lionhead.

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