Five Ways Fable III Could Piss You Off

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Written by BuckGB on February 8th, 2010

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IT WON'T BE AN RPG

There are those who'd argue that the Fable franchise barely constitutes an RPG anyway but, if you had to pick a genre label, a game where the primary focus is on shaping your own destiny through the choices you make sounds like role-play to us. What makes us think that Fable III might do away with third-person open-ended profiteering, pillaging and prostitution though? Well, for a start, during the game's original Gamescom reveal, Molyneux spoke of finally jettisoning an "insidious, fundamental RPG mechanic."

Sure, that could be anything but given how many RPG mechanics the Fable franchise has already kicked to the curb, what's left? How about ditching the genre's emphasis on the solitary 'hero' story arc? After all, it limits your scope as a player if you're strung along a single, predetermined narrative path, no matter how much emphasis is placed on the illusion of choice.

We already know that you play the decision-maker in Fable III and it sounds like it's not so much self-fulfillment as the self-contained stories of your subjects that define your time as ruler of your own particular patch of Albion. As Molyneux says, in Fable III you can pass judgement and decide, "One of my advisors is going to go out there and sort it out for me" or "No, I'm going to go out there as king and sort it all out". Factor in variables for taxation, renown and more and it all starts to sound less like a traditional RPG and more like resource management. Ultimately, that's probably a bit too radical a departure for one of Microsoft's flagship franchises but, hey, it would certainly piss fans off.

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