LogInPlayground Games' ex-dev suggests that the development of the Fable reboot slowed down because the studio "lacked people with knowledge" and had a frugal approach.
The Fable reboot was first announced back in 2020, and the rumors that the game was in development were heard two years before that. Although since then, nothing was known about the project except the reveal trailer that was presented at the 2020's Xbox Game Showcase.
Playground Games that is developing the game is best known for its Forza Horizon series and many wondered how would the studio manage to bring to life a solid fantasy story with a character-focused open-world action RPG gameplay. Apparently, the developer had some issues on that, as claimed by Juan Fernández, the game designer behind the original Hellblade and its sequel, who was interviewed by Spanish Vandal about his experience at Playground Games.
Fernández who spent three years working on Fable and left the studio shortly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic sees two main issues that the Playground Games faced during the development. One of them is that the studio "lacked people with knowledge" on how to make open-world, character-driven action RPGs.
"They wanted to branch out with something different and they thought that what they do well is open-world racing games," said the game designer, "[But] they lack people with the knowledge of how gameplay is done. In an open world, how you control a character and the actions are very different from what you have in a racing game".
The other factor that slowed the game development, according to Fernández, was the studio's "doing more with less" approach which served the studio well while working on the Forza Horizon series but made the development process "longer and longer" when it came to a more ambitious project like Fable.
Nonetheless, Fernández drew attention to the fact that the company has always managed to cope with the tasks set in a short time, despite the relatively small team compared to the largest AAA studios. He also noted that Playground Games has seemingly been recruiting more employees since he left, so it’s currently unknown whether these issues are still occurring at the studio.
You can find the original interview with Juan Fernández here. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, following us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.