Jez Corden has suddenly revealed that he got to see alpha footage for Playground Games’ anticipated reboot of Fable.
Jez revealed this in the latest episode of the Xbox Two podcast. As we quoted him in this article’s title, he actually said, “it’s fucking fantastic.”
Jez doesn’t know where the alpha footage came from, or how old the footage is. He also revealed that he saw that footage circulating around, so it’s possible that our usual favorite leakers and content creators, and even a few journalists, could have already seen this alpha.
Jez even speculates that this could be going around because it could be shown in this year’s The Game Awards in some capacity. In any case, he’s being quite clear that it definitely looks much better than any of the trailers that we have already seen. Apparently, you can also tell that the footage is in-engine and not a cutscene, and that the player character is being controlled by a human player.
Speaking of the player character, Jez saw the same character that we have seen in the trailers so far. He did say that he was told since Summer Games Fest that players will get to choose a male or female character, and the next trailer may show us the male playable character.
Now, Jez reminded us of something that was relevant to why he was so excited for this alpha trailer. As we had reported, Playground Games has been going in a gigantic hiring spree, going so far as to open a third studio. This certainly reflects a long term reorganization in the company, as in previous years we had reported on former Playground Games staff leaving the company.
One of the people Playground Games hired is Paweł Kapała, a combat designer who worked on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077. Jez didn’t name Kapała, but he reiterated that Playground hired a lot of people from CD Projekt RED.
As he describes it, the combat he saw is not one-to-one with what was in The Witcher, but you can tell it plays like a CD Projekt RED game. He describes combat elements such as parrying, dodging, and execution, to be impressive, and quite violent.
Perhaps the way Fable will distinguish itself from The Witcher is the humorous or satirical edge it has. Jez describes a scenario with a giant chicken enemy, which looks dangerous, but it’s a chicken. In another scenario, a werewolf is lured out of its lair with a full English breakfast.
Jez also brings up the different weapon types, and that the player is allowed to mix it up between them. So, you can switch from using a bow and arrow, to casting that spell that was shown in the last trailer to lift enemies mid air and slam them. There is also a big mallet that can hit multiple enemies.
To sum up, Jez believes that Fable could be that strong story based single player game that has eluded Xbox for so long, like many Sony games like Horizon, God of War, and Ghost of Tsushima, and coincidentally, like The Witcher.
