The upcoming Xbox One exclusive Fable Legends is much more than a co-operative multiplayer spin-off from Microsoft's critically acclaimed fantasy RPG. It's the start of a whole new chapters in the saga, and one intended to last for the next console generation.
"We're playing the long game with this," John Needham, the head of the Lionhead studio, has told GamesIndustry.biz. "This is the next big Fable game that is going to be out for five to ten years so it needs to be big, it needs to be interesting. There needs to be a lot of stuff to do, it needs to integrate all the cloud and Xbox One features so we keep our community alive and growing. So yeah, it's big and ambitious, but it needs to be because it's going to be around a long time."
The game puts you, and up to three other friends, into a persistent online version of Albion, centuries before the events of the previous titles. Hence the name change, explained game director David Eckelberry.
"The reason that this isn't called Fable 4 isn't that we don't love Fable or that we're not taking all these Fable concepts and design principles and putting it in this game," he said. "It's that chronologically it's not where we decided we wanted to go. We're not a continuation of Fable III, or Fable: The Journey's plotline."
Fable Legends is set for release next year exclusively on Xbox One. Fable Anniversary, the HD remake of the original 2004 game, is due on Xbox 360 in February.