Rumour: Fable Reboot Is 'Miles Away' While Xbox Focuses On Hellblade 2 And Avowed

Glad to hear that Hellblade 2 is the closer one, the wait for it has been a hard one. Is Avowed also a proper AAA game or a smaller thing?
Fable is an RPG game being built in an studio that formerly did only racing games, it is going to take ages. Also, is Fable being developed with Unreal Engine? or are they hammering their racing-only ForzaTech into an RPG engine?

What about Compulsions game, State of Decay 3, and Indiana Jones? My personal interest in those is higher than it is for a game like Everwild. I figure Indiana Jones is still a ways since it just started in 2020ish. And I get Fable taking a while because of the resources Forza probably needed. But there’s other games besides Perfect Dark (well documented rumors as to what’s happening there) and Fable.

why does seem like there's little planned for this year. Starfield and Redfall are supposed to be last year's games, what were we supposed to be playing instead of them in 23 before they got delayed? Hi-Fi rush and Forza DLC for the first 6 months?

Sounds more like speculation than a credible rumour. That being said, it's a bit gutting if it's still miles away. Sounds like it could have gotten the Metroid Prime 4 treatment.

@BrilliantBill Avowed will be a big AAA game. It's being made by RPG veterans Obsidian.

@BrilliantBill It's probably going to be similar to Outer Worlds than their CRPGs.

@BrilliantBill They came out and said they were using the Forza engine for Fable, so it's definitely going to take a while to get the engine suited for an open-world RPG.

@xMightyMatt14x The fact that not even a single noise is heard about them probably means they are 2025-26 things in my opinion.

@abe_hikura A good and worrying question. But probably just HiFi Rush, Forza DLC and then Forza Motorsport. And then 2024 was going to be the year it all works out and so on...

@ActionPanther Well considering their last game being a "honey I shrunk the kids" I had a worry they treat us to another small experimental thing.

@MattT3142 Yeah, cool but I totally don't get what led to that. Use of unique engines in various XGS teams is really strange. Sony had Kojima take the Horizon engine for Death Stranding and it definitely helped him to make the game quicker.

@BrilliantBill I wouldn't be surprised if the team at Playground asked to use that engine. It's what they're familiar with, so they probably wanted to stick with that engine and modify it for the purposes of an RPG.

Plus, with them sharing the engine with Turn 10, it means they can collectively build and refine the engine, which is probably why the Forza games look and run so darn well.

Had forgotten about Avowed. They really announce too early.

They need something else this year imo, if the second half of 23 is Starfield and Forza that is a bit disappointing. Or at the very least indicative they were relying on having CoD on Gamepass this year.

@themightyant I was generally wondering about scope of it yes. To me outer worlds also looked and felt like a "smaller" game. Opposite of the Elder Scrolls games.

@Kaloudz I mean, we don't know in what scope it has been and generally game development is confusing as hell. Was it a team of 100 people working? 300 people? Or was it just 20 guys making a proof of concept that convinces Phil to give them the budget? And they announced it the moment it was approved for becoming a full production?
I don't know about Indiana Jones, it is kinda strange, it was the inspiration behind both Tomb Raider and then Uncharted and having a game based on it kind of brings things back full circle. But still, what will it offer that TR and Uncharted didn't?

@elpardo1984 I mean, if they get Redfall, Starfield and FM in one year and all three are good to great games I am happy. Besides, there is nothing wrong with getting just a Forza. The attitude that getting a Forza/Halo/Gears doesn't count is strongly hurting Xbox and sadly it mostly comes from fans themselves. These franchises carried Xbox through OG Xbox and X360 pretty well. Why not through this gen? Sony has surely been riding with GranTurismo and God of War for ages now.

@themightyant @BrilliantBill Fair Points. Microsoft seem to be putting a lot of stock into Avowed so I'm hoping it's going to be a big game. Maybe not 'Starfield' big, but big enough to get people talking.

Miles away means the next Xbox. Avowed and Hellblade 2 will be at some point next year.

FWIW I never pictured Avowed to be small. We know Obsidian makes big games and hasn't had money to make one since...IDK, KotOR2? But then again I don't really see Outer Worlds as small, either.

@themightyant Yeah same. I hope we see some gameplay this year and get more of an idea of what the game will be.

I'd really like them to get back the levels of Fallout New Vegas now that they have the backing. Outer Worlds was a step in the right direction and with the Spacer's Choice edition, is likely what they wanted the game to be from the beginning.

@abe_hikura
Because Xbox game development is in wibbly wobbly land like always.
We were supposed to FM and Starfield before end of June 2023 after the 2022 delays.

Think I’ll end up trading in my series x for a ps5

By the time these games come out they will be on the next Xbox anyways lol

All I really want is quality games that are pretty much perfect upon release. I played both Horizon Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok upon their release, and both games shipped in good order. I'm not suggesting that there weren't any problems at all, but for the most part that played very well. I don't mind if a game sits in the oven for a few extra months (as with Starfield) so long as when it releases, it is in such a condition that you can play it without issue, and not have to wait for updates to make the experience worthwhile (such as with the recent Pokemon games, which I still haven't been able to play a couple of months after their release).

Take what time you need to put out a good product in good order...

The management for these games is insane perfect dark has been in development for atleast 4 years now and not even a single gameplay video. Everwild should be canceled. And the game they should release, which was almost completed they're sitting on it which is Scalebound.

Fable being a long way away is not surprising to me.
Driving games devs making an RPG in an engine developed for a driving game? Was bound to hit lots of major hurdles and obviously has. I hope it over-comes these and ends up being a great homage to the originals, but there's every possibility it will be a broken mess and not what any of us want.
I hope MS use their teams wisely and help them spread knowledge. Bethusda could help with designing some of the RPG systems on Fable, and those guys know how to do that stuff...

PSA: This is the same guy who claimed that MS would sell Xbox if they couldn’t acquire ABK, claimed that Xbox had no marketing budget and also the one who sparked all the controversy surrounding RedFall’s (lack of) physical edition.

I don’t believe a single word that comes out of his mouth anymore.

@BrilliantBill dont get me wrong Forza is one of my favourite and most anticipated games. Its nothing to do with a perception of MS having Halo/GoW/Forza only.
The point was if the latter half of this year is 2 games they previously had in their coming in the next 12 months showcase(one of which in turn having had several delays) it is a bad look for them after a nothing 2022.

@Meehanuk_1987 And what Sony first party AAA exclusives does PS5 have this year all of about One.
Sony PS5 games are mostly last gen with a Standard upgrade and what's coming mainly this year? a lot of VR Shovelware Sony have fallen into the same trap as MS did with Kinect despite Kinect being more popular.

MS has already released a first party current gen high scoring game this year with plenty more to come.

@Sifi probably play through god of war 2 the last of us 2 possibly horizon and will be able to play final fantasy 16 and hopefully silent hill 2 remake when that comes out.

Not attacking Xbox I’ll still have my series s but don’t feel like the series x is worth it at this point

Gaming is about the games and there’s nothing at the moment that’s a must play on Xbox for me or in the near future

Play through hi if rush if that’s the game your talking about and it was alright nothing that could of been done on previous gen or even on the 360

It was alright

@Meehanuk_1987 that’s really the thing nobody is saying. We’re halfway through the generation and barely have any big 1st party games. I’m not without games to play thanks to 3rd party and GP, but definitely feel like I invested way too much in Xbox this generation. Lesson learned.

@Meehanuk_1987 I'm right there with you lol. As soon as I'm done with Hogwarts Legacy, I'm out, I think. It's mind boggling how much trouble this company has getting games out the door. they have more money than they know what to do with, but can't get anything finished, ever.

We have to start using a word that I know a lot of fans don't want to use: incompetence. Microsoft's baffling inability to get really ANYTHING out the door in a reasonable amount of time is just...incompetence at this point. Yes Sony has made great games for decades, but I'm sorry, Microsoft has beaten themselves far more than anything.

lol what the hell is going with Perfect Dark. the studio was founded almost five years ago and not only is it much further away than Starfield etc, but also Avowed?

@armondo36 Yeah there seems to be a lot of waiting for the next big thing with Microsoft I was massively looking foward to fable but that doesn’t seem to be doing well.

There was nothing in the Xbox showcase that excited me the vampire shooter looked average forza looked good but just another forza game.

@TheGrizMan Yeah it’s definitely sad as I’ve tried to enjoy my xbox but it’s got to the point now where gamepass doesn’t cut it

It’s cheap but there’s nothing on there for me anyway that’s made me think wow that’s amazing this is next gen even with Xbox first party games that have been released

The third party stuff the majority of is stuff I could get on PlayStation and a lot of it are games I wouldn’t really bother with anyways.

Just the way Xbox have handled halo is shocking halo was my favourite game series but that’s died with infinite which doesn’t give me hope for anything else that was there flag ship title it’s like Nintendo killing off Mario.

The only Xbox news we hear about is the Activision stuff which is getting boring now.

just lost faith in Microsoft and Xbox in general.

I am having so much fun playing all my backlog that I can’t hear your depressing moaning …. La la la can’t hear you

Seems like a silly rumor, I wouldn't worry much. There's a whole big list on this site of upcoming games, so even if true, I'm not too disappointed

@armondo36 Dude I've been feeling that kind of way for years. The Peter Moore and Don Mattrick eras of Xbox heavily relied on exclusive content partnerships to drive value to their products. Their top tier IPs (besided Halo) were developed via partnership. (Forza, Gears, etc.)

Their in-house studios? Horribly mismanaged.

Bungie was Microsoft's lone bright spot of consistency, but MS would buy and fumble so many studios (Lionhead, Rare, and Ensemble to name a few).

Point is, I don't think they've ever been good at team building or management within Xbox. My biggest hope from their Activision Blizzard deal is that MS will finally gather some decent studio heads to help make their other teams more efficient.

xbox should let obsidian & inxile help fable development after they finished their games

I have no interesting in Everwild, fable or perfect dark

@IOI Same here, this guy has lost all credibility.

Man I am excited for all 3 of these games. Obsidians Outer worlds was disappointing so hopefully its sequel and avowed are better. But man, come on FABLE!