There have been reports recently that Fable 4 is now in development, although it has not yet been officially stated who is going to be making this product, with Lionhead Studios no longer involved. It will be interesting to see how a new studio takes on the project of continuing the beloved Fable story considering that the third instalment, Fable 3 has perhaps not been regarded as highly as the first two games in the franchise. As this article from Midday Daily explains, some people even rank it among the worst RPGs of all time.

But just why do people think that Fable 3 didn’t quite match the expectations that they had for a new Fable game?

Over Promising from Peter Molyneux

One of the main complaints about Fable 3 on its release was that many of the features that were originally promised for the game weren’t in fact included. This may be in part because of the normal tendency of creator Peter Molyneux to become somewhat over enthusiastic about his products, and to hype up mechanics and innovations that are not actually in the specifications of budgets for the games. Those who are familiar with Molyneux’s work may well have taken a lot of the features that were touted for Fable 3 with a grain of salt, however this didn’t stop players from feeling disappointed when they actually started to play the game.

Experimental Menu System

Another reason why Fable 3 wasn’t perhaps as popular as its predecessor was the introduction of the new menu system. In Fable 1 and Fable 2 the player used a normal RPG style menu system which allowed them to equip items and to make any changes to their character or do any fast travelling that they wanted to do. However, in Fable 3 the menu system was taken out all together and instead players had to return to an area outside of the game called the Sanctuary where they could make changes to clothing or weapons and check which quests they were following. Though this did appeal to some players, the majority found that it got old quite quickly and ruined some of the tenser moments in the game by taking them out of the action merely to change weapons.

Perhaps an Unfair Judgment

While Fable 3 may not be the best regarded of RPG games, a replay without taking into account the features missing that were expected when the game was released does reveal that Fable 3 has got some special qualities that make it stand out within the Fable series. One of the best things about this game is the end sequence where you get to play as the ruler of the in-game world and make decisions that affect the rest of the people in the game even after the end boss fight. By contrast, Fable 2 actually let players down a little with the end boss, considering that the boss is defeated with a single gunshot and a cutscene rather than combat. This is not the case in Fable 3, which does have a stand out fight with a powerful enemy at its climax, however a lot of players did find the combat throughout the game to be overly simple. As a casual RPG however, this is not necessarily a bad thing, or outside of the expectations of the fanbase.

It will be interesting to see what the gamer reaction to Fable 4 will be, though it is likely to be a couple of years before we see its release.