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Timeline
2016: Lionhead closes
Lionhead Studios, the original developer of Fable (founded by Peter Molyneux), shut down in 2016 after Fable Legends was cancelled. The franchise went dormant.
2017: Playground Games gets the project
Playground Games, fresh off Forza Horizon 3, created a second development team dedicated to the new Fable. The studio is based in Leamington Spa, England. Their experience was entirely in racing games at this point.
July 2020: official announcement
A cinematic CGI trailer debuted at the Xbox Games Showcase. A fairy flew between swords and skulls in a magical forest with a British narrator. No gameplay was shown.
2020-2021: key hires
Anna Megill (previously known for her writing work on Control) joined Playground Games in December 2020 as Lead Writer. She was promoted to Narrative Lead in July 2022. The team also hired Pawel Kapala, a gameplay designer from CD Projekt Red who had worked on The Witcher 3's combat.
March 2023: full production
Playground Games entered full production on the game.
June 2023: first gameplay
The first in-game trailer aired at Xbox Games Showcase 2023. It introduced Richard Ayoade as Dave, the gardener who becomes a giant. This was the public's first look at actual gameplay.
July-August 2023: Megill departs
Anna Megill announced her departure on July 14, 2023, and left the project in August 2023. Her title at departure was Narrative Lead. She later joined CD Projekt Red to work on the Cyberpunk 2077 follow-up. Her replacement at Playground Games has not been publicly named.
June 2024: Humphry trailer and Eidos-Montreal
Xbox Showcase 2024 showed a mockumentary-style trailer introducing Matt King as Humphry the Golden. Playground Games also confirmed that Eidos-Montreal (Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy) is supporting development. Reports indicate roughly 100 Eidos-Montreal developers joined the project, contributing since around 2022 and bringing experience from the Tomb Raider games to strengthen combat systems.
February 25, 2025: delay announced
Craig Duncan, Head of Xbox Game Studios, announced on the Official Xbox Podcast that Fable was moving from 2025 to 2026: "We are actually going to give Fable more time. It's going to ship in 2026 now."
January 22, 2026: Developer Direct
The Xbox Developer Direct gave the game its biggest showing. A gameplay deep dive covered Style Weaving combat, the open world, NPC systems, and the reputation mechanic. This event confirmed the PS5 version (a first for any Fable game), the Autumn 2026 release window, and Character Customization. Associate Game Director Craig Littler also appeared during the presentation.
The engine
Fable runs on ForzaTech, Turn 10 Studios' proprietary engine built for the Forza racing games. Playground Games adapted it for open-world fantasy RPG use. Early 2023 rumors that the project had switched to Unreal Engine 5 were debunked by journalists at Windows Central and GamesIndustry.biz.
ForzaTech brings raytracing support, a procedural cloud system, light-reactive shaders, and vegetation rendering tech carried over from Forza Horizon. The art pipeline uses Autodesk Maya, Blender, ZBrush for sculpting, and Substance Painter for PBR textures.
Design philosophy
Ralph Fulton, Playground Games' founder and general manager, has been open about the studio's approach. He said they wanted to make "Playground's Fable" rather than "Fable 4." His reasoning: "We're not Lionhead. We're a different studio, different people, different culture." They studied what made the original games work but did not feel bound by every decision Lionhead made.
The Witcher 3 was a direct influence: Pawel Kapala, a CDPR gameplay designer, spent over a year at Playground Games designing and implementing Fable's combat. Skyrim was also cited as an influence on the game's open-world RPG design.