The upcoming Fable game is binning the straight good and evil binary that’s defined much of the series so far in favor of more complex regional reputations, meaning settlements will react to your excessive wealth or shrewdness or murderous tendencies – rather than the demonic horns and angelic halos of previous games.
Playground Games’ choice to drop Lionhead’s signature morality-based character morphing has been somewhat controversial in recent months, but associate game director Craig Littler gave GamesRadar+ (this website here) a rundown on the decision while showing off a behind-the-scenes demo.
Littler told us the reputation system “goes so much further than good versus evil” and lets players “build a complex, nuanced identity” that’ll split the opinions of each NPC in Albion. “They all have a slightly different take on who I am and what I mean to them.”
A recently-released chunk of gameplay (below) shows off some examples. One villager is smitten with the demo’s hero for material reasons: he’s a home owner and an entrepreneur (a real power fantasy in this economy). But another humble denizen in that same exact village detests the hero because of her perceptions about wealth and snobbery, bumping up her wares by 80% in protest.
“Every action in Fable builds a local reputation, and eventually you’ll be known for the reputations you build, and everybody will judge you on their own moral view, often directly. And that’s at the heart of our modern, nuanced take on morality. It goes so much further than good versus evil, it’s subjective and multifaceted. One person’s good is another person’s evil. Even being merciful will divide a few of you,” Littler adds.
Lionhead’s Fable trilogy had a much stricter view on your actions. Want to fart in a villager’s face or refuse to show mercy to a bandit? You grow horns. This Fable game instead acknowledges that not everyone will feel the same way about your actions. Some people won’t think passing gas around strangers is grounds to be called evil. Some people will call that an average day in the London Underground.
“Really, our game is all about morality being subjective, so the benefits are kind of in the eye of the beholder and the eye of the NPCs,” Littler continues.
Earlier in the year, Playground Games founder Ralph Fulton told us the game’s take on your actions is “representative of how morality exists in the world that we live in today.”
While longtime fans will continue to be split on the change long after the game’s release, I’m interested to see how this shakes out when Fable comes out next February, since morality in RPGs has rarely existed on a linear bar since the 2000s – your Mass Effects, Star Wars: KOTORs, etc. Everything from The Witcher 3 to Disco Elysium have since reacted to your decisions in ways that didn’t put a “good” or “bad” stamp on you, as much as I’ll miss growing horns for becoming a greedy landlord.
