Fable III-details revealed at X10

Published 2010-02-12

Are you upset yet?

Two weeks ago, Peter Molyneux told us in a video interview that he was going to make a big announcement at X10 that was "really going to upset people". According to Molyneux, there were some "big things happening in Fable, bigger than you think" and with X10 out of the way we now know what those big things were.

The most obvious change is the complete lack of a visible HUD, with everything from health bars to experience bars removed. Experience is gained from how many followers your character has, which makes me wonder a bit about what kind of followers a purely evil character will attract - we do know Albion is filled with all kinds of corrupted people, but do we really want to hang out with them?

Who knows, but it ties neatly into the game, where the child of your Fable II-persona becomes the new king after toppling a tyrant. Ruling a kingdom won't be as easy as one would hope, though, and you will end up having to do some hard choices for the (real or imagined) greater good of the people. With this comes the system called Touch, where you can reach out and grab every person that comes in your way - according to Molyneux this is inspired by Ico, where you'd grab the mysterious princess by the hand and lead her through a dangerous castle.

Touch is supposed to add a more personal touch (no pun intended) to the game and you will use it to bring lost children home to their mothers or criminals to the gallows. It's supposed to be available at all times in Fable III, straight from the get-go. How it will work in reality remains to be seen, but at least on paper Touch sounds a lot more personal than farting at struggling farmers to make them forget that you're really nothing except a greedy bastard who just raised their rents by 100%.

The game also comes with online co-op, where you supposedly are able to marry your co-op partner (will you marry me, Bengt?), and the weapons you use will morph and become more powerful as you use them. When you tire of them, you can then sell them to other players online, even though Molyneux didn't seem to share much information about how that feature is actually going to work.

The thing that was supposed to make us pissed off seems like it was the whole "no HUD"-deal. While many people were speculating what it could have been over the last two weeks, it must be said that the announcements made at X10 felt pretty anti-climatic. There is really nothing to be upset about here, instead it all sounds pretty neat to be honest. It's hard to forget Molyneux's comments though, which I guess for many risk overshadowing what was actually revealed.

Sorry, Peter. You might have pissed us off ten years ago, but not now. We're not even remotely upset.