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Fable 2 Preview (Xbox 360)
By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
October 6th, 2006
X06 wasn’t all about terror, aberration and gore. Although I’ll remember this X0 for all that, this prolific event saw also some of the most brilliant story tellers sharing their vision for next-generation gaming, with Peter Jackson at the top of a group that promises to revolutionize gaming and storytelling using the Xbox platform. If you missed that Future of Storytelling panel, head over to this page to watch the whole session.
One of those brilliant minds is Peter Molyneux, a game designer that entered the Hall of Fame of Gaming when he gave birth to the god games with the creation of Populous. Almost twenty years later, he finds himself working for Microsoft Game Studios, after the software giant decided to acquire Guildford-based Lionhead Studios and its satellites.
At last week’s X06, we had the chance to learn more about Fable 2: the sequel to 2004’s ground-breaking role-playing adventure game for the Xbox. We also l04’s ground-breaking role-playing adventure game for the Xbox. We also learned a few tidbits about the “super secret” feature.
The first new feature that Peter Molyneux discussed was “dynamic levels”. It happened that at one point during the development of Fable, Molyneux promised that you could plant an acorn and see it growing into an oak tree, but unfortunately, that feature was cut from Fable. Because of that, Molyneux received death threats from anonymous Fable fans.
For Fable 2, that and much more will finally happen in the game. But forget about acorns turning into oak trees; let’s talk about changing whole levels.
Brightwood
This is one of the regions in Fable 2. Over the course of the game, this region will change, and those changes will depend on how you play Fable 2.
A camp could turn into a village in a decade, and in another ten years time there will be a town in there. Or, if you destroy the camp, there won’t be an evolving settlement in there, so nature will take over that area.
The whole example of acorns turning into oak trees has evolved, and this it will certainly be part of the final game; making Peter happy for the fact that he won’t receive any more death threats…
Another new feature found in Fable 2 is ownership. Peter explained that this is such a simple concept, but for some reason we have played so many role playing games for countless years in castles, towns, villages, dungeons but they were just scenarios that you could only step in, but never own. “It is about time that you can own those places” emphasized Molyneux, with all the implications that may have.
Ultimately, if you play long enough, you can own everything you see in the world of Fable 2.
The Characters
Once again, Peter promises that story and characters will also be next-generation in Fable 2. Molyneux feel that with Fable, Lionhead Studios pioneered morphing and for that matter Fable 2 will have to accomplish more than that to surprise you because morphing into good or evil won’t be enough.
One new concept is wealth; in Fable 2 you can also become rich or poor independently from what path of integrity you choose. You can be a good but poor hero, or an evil rich ******, but things really get interesting when we talk about other, more rare combinations that are related to cruelty and kindness.
Molyneux also highlighted that, at the start of the game, you’ll have to choose your character’s gender. He also let slip that there will be an advanced form of customization as every hero will be unique, and whether you choose to spend more time in the mirror or not it’ll be up to you.
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PabUK
