Rumor: Fable Has Been “Downscaled” Due to Engine Troubles

Developer Playground Games is struggling to make progress on Microsoft’s new Fable game, according to an interview with a former Playground Games employee. Playground Games is a first-party AAA Microsoft studio most known for making titles in the Forza series. “Fable 4,” as the game is unofficially called, was formally announced in 2020 following a footage leak the previous year. It was revealed soon after that Fable is to be an RPG and that the game will be developed on the Forza engine.

In an interview with Vandal, game developer Juan Fernández, who has previously worked at studios like Tequila Works and Ninja Theory, shared some thoughts on Playground Games after leaving the studio:

They have taken racing games, and they’ve dominated them these last few years. They’re very smart, and they know what they’re doing. They wanted to branch out with something different, and they thought that what they do well is open world racing games, [but] they lacked people with the knowledge of how gameplay is done… Moving in a car at 300 kmh has very different requirements than walking through the countryside.

– Juan Fernández, game developer

On the Xbox News Cast, host gazondaily shared that a source who worked for Playground Games told him the studio was having trouble creating the new Fable in the Forza engine. Although gazondaily did not name his source, he states the source informed him the game was being “downscaled” due to these problems.

Of course, without any official word from Microsoft or Playground Games, this information amounts to little more than rumor. Still, there’s been precious little shared about the new Fable title. Fans of the series may be right to show a little concern.

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