News regarding Lionhead’s cooperative RPG Fable Legends has emerged via of a UK press event that took place earlier today. Most notably, studio head John Needham spoke about the game, its attendance at E3 next month, and how development is progressing.
Fable Legends is an exciting title that’s really fun already. We’re building it with Unreal Engine 4, and that combined with Xbox One has resulted in us building I think one of the most beautiful games on the platform.
We’re super busy at the studio gearing up for E3. We’re going to have a huge presence there. You can come to our booth and play.
Thank you for the invitation, sir! Though not an MMO, Fable Legends is a highly ambitious title intended to have a long lifespan. Needham and the team are referring to the launch version of the game as “season one,” and have previously stated its longevity could span anywhere from five to ten years. Needham emphasized that Fable Legends is perfectly playable in single player mode too, despite its heavy online emphasis.
You can play with other people in a four-player cooperative experience. Your party could be all human players, or a mix of players and AI-controlled Heroes. You can switch easily between single player and multiplayer styles of play whenever you decide, or when a friend signs on. During a quest, you can elect to battle a human or an AI Villain.
That last bit is especially interesting. How exactly will story quests be handled if a villain can be computer or player controlled at any given time? Presumably certain quests will feature AI-only opponents, but even so, there will no-doubt be other hurdles to deal with concerning this mechanic. What if a formidable, player-controlled opponent mistakenly gets up for a bag of Doritos without pausing the game? Do I get credit for a high-level quest after completing it more easily than a tutorial? Hopefully E3 will help answer some of these questions.
Lionhead has gone on record that Fable Legends is the “only core Fable game in development,” so if you plan to stick with the series, you’ll want to check out the planned beta later this year.
[Via: CVG]
