One of the big reveals from the recent Xbox Developer Direct was the first gameplay showcase for the Fable reboot, and now a top Microsoft boss has further hyped it up. Craig Duncan, the head of Xbox Game Studios, said in an interview that the Fable reboot is coming together well, specifically singling out the game’s so-called “Living Population” feature as being “mind-blowing.
He said this to GamesRadar amid a response to a question about if he felt it was a “risk” for developer Playground to make an RPG after working exclusively on the Forza Horizon series since 2012. He said Playground working on Fable is “really about this relentless pursuit of excellence.”
Duncan said Playground made the Forza Horizon series “bigger and bigger” with each new installment, “But what does that mean for Fable?”
“I have played a bunch of the game; I’ve messed around with the combat and the Living Population, and it’s just mind-blowing,” he said.
The Living Population in the Fable reboot is the term that Playground is using to describe the game’s cast of 1,000+ NPCs. Each of them has their own specific roles, personalities, and daily routines and are described as “persistent NPCs.”
“As you play the game, you get to know the names of the individual NPCs. You get to know what they like, what they’re looking for in a partner, where they live, where they work, all that kind of cool stuff. It’s an extra dimension to traditional NPCs,” Microsoft said of the Living Population.
Also in the interview, Duncan said the original Fable trilogy from since-shuttered developer Lionhead had some “really special ideas.” For the reboot, however, Playground is taking some of those ideas and putting a “modernized” spin on them, he said.
“My brain pops every time I think about the Living Population, how it works, and what it adds to the overall game; it’s an incredible invention, and Fable is going to be an incredible RPG,” Duncan said. “It will be amazing to see what players do with it, and it’ll be massively shareable. I love when we make things I’m excited to play as a player.”
The Fable reboot launches later this year on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It’s not the only new title coming this year from Playground, as the developer is also launching Forza Horizon 6 this May. Yet another big Xbox franchise is getting a new release this year, as Halo Studios will launch Halo: Campaign Evolved at some point this year, which is the 25th anniversary of Xbox.
