It’s been a long time since we had a proper new Fable, so seeing Bowerstone again immediately did something to me. The city was filled with people, shops, stupid jokes and plenty of things that could easily distract me from whatever heroic job I was supposed to be doing. During our Gamescom presentation, we got to see one of the first missions in Albion and spent quite some time walking around Bowerstone. And yes, a shop called Stitch Please is apparently exactly the kind of humor we can expect again.
Bowerstone is packed with NPCs. Playground Games told us there are more than 30 shops and around 130 houses in the city, and you can interact with everyone walking around. Those people aren’t just there to fill the streets either. They have their own routines and homes, and you can eventually buy a lot of those properties yourself. At one point, the developers simply walked into a random house to show us one of the interiors. There was no loading screen or transition, the door opened and we were inside. With this many buildings around, I’m glad entering one doesn’t mean staring at a loading screen every couple of minutes.
Back in Bowerstone
The city itself looks gorgeous. Albion has always had this exaggerated fantasy style, and Playground Games kept that feeling while adding a ridiculous amount of detail. The lighting looked especially good during the presentation, but the characters impressed me even more. Their facial expressions are some of the best I’ve seen in this type of RPG, which helps a lot when so much of Fable depends on conversations and jokes actually landing. We eventually found a key to the Heroes’ Guild and made our way inside. The Guild is a massive church-like building and was easily one of the prettiest locations shown during the demo. This is also where we met Humphry, who immediately showed that Fable hasn’t suddenly become too serious.
Humphry is a former Hero, although he seems a lot more interested in talking about himself and selling merchandise than actually helping anyone. Before we could get much out of him, he wanted a huge beer. Once we brought it back, the game gave us two options: hand it over like a normal person or throw the entire thing over him. Obviously, the developers threw it. It’s a stupid little decision, but that’s exactly why I liked it. Other people saw what happened and our reputation changed because of it. Suddenly, our Hero was considered an arsehole. Not every decision needs to determine whether an entire village survives or burns to the ground. Sometimes being remembered as the idiot who threw a beer over someone is enough.
Humphry has a story to tell
Humphry was easily one of the more entertaining characters we saw. He has that typical Fable way of talking where you’re never completely sure if you should take him seriously. At one point, he started explaining his past almost like we were watching some weird Netflix documentary about a celebrity who really misses his glory days. The presentation introduced several other NPCs during the quest as well, all with completely different looks and personalities. I got the impression this was one of the main reasons Playground Games picked this particular mission for the presentation. The actual objective wasn’t anything spectacular, but it allowed them to show how many characters you can meet while simply moving through Bowerstone.
That’s going to be important for Fable. If I’m spending dozens of hours in Albion, I want to remember some of the idiots I meet along the way. Based on this presentation, Playground Games certainly isn’t afraid to make them weird.
Swords, bows and plenty of magic
We also got a short look at combat. It’s still third-person action where you can fight with melee weapons, bows and magic, and switching between them looked quick enough that fights didn’t turn into endless menu management. The spells were probably the part I found most interesting. Several enemies could attack at the same time, so magic was used to keep groups under control instead of only focusing on one target. One spell could buy some space when enemies started surrounding the Hero, after which the fight could immediately continue with a sword or bow. Seeing melee, ranged attacks and magic being mixed during the same encounter looked very Fable.
Combat appeared fast and easy to follow, but this is also the part I really need to play myself before saying much more. Watching someone dodge an attack or switch into another spell tells me what is possible, but not how good it actually feels with a controller in my hands. Completing quests and exploring Albion rewards points that can be spent in a pretty large skill tree as well. We didn’t spend enough time in those menus to really understand how far you can take a certain build, but there were plenty of upgrades to choose from. I’m curious to see whether you can really lean towards magic, melee or ranged combat later on, or if most players will eventually end up using a bit of everything.
Finding the Guild Deeds
Our main objective eventually became finding the Guild Deeds, and this gave us another look at how differently a quest can be approached. Instead of politely asking around until somebody handed them over, the developers used a lockpick to break into a house and look for them there. Again, nothing revolutionary, but it’s very Fable.
You have something you need, there’s a house standing between you and that objective, and breaking in is apparently a perfectly valid solution if you don’t mind what people might think afterwards. Since NPCs react to your reputation, behaving like an idiot throughout Bowerstone should eventually come back to haunt you. We also saw the waypoint system during this part of the presentation. It was especially useful in the working-class district, where the streets were packed tightly together and most of the buildings were much lower than in the richer parts of Bowerstone. I could easily see myself taking the wrong street there, so having a clear direction towards the next objective seems useful without needing to constantly open the map.
Let me loose in Albion
This wasn’t the type of Fable presentation filled with giant monsters or some dramatic reveal about the story. We basically watched a quest, met a bunch of strange people, threw a beer over an old Hero, broke into somebody’s house and saw some combat along the way. And I kind of loved that.
Those smaller moments are what I wanted to see from Fable. Bowerstone looks beautiful, the facial animations are fantastic and the dialogue already has that witty British humor I remember from the older games. Add all those NPCs, houses you can enter and buy, reputation changes and different ways to deal with an objective, and I already know I’m going to waste a ridiculous amount of time doing things that have absolutely nothing to do with saving Albion. There are still plenty of things I need to see, especially how combat actually feels and how much those smaller choices can change your adventure later on. But after watching this mission, I mostly wanted one thing: the controller. Just drop me somewhere in Bowerstone and I’ll figure out the heroic stuff later.