Developed/Published by: Lionhead Studios / Microsoft
Released: October 26th, 2010
Completed: 6th February, 2014
Completion: Completed the main story (saving everyone), did basically all the non-collectables side quest and then, inexcusably, went on and beat both DLC.
Trophies / Achievements: 725/1250

Fable II was, for me, one of those games that just worked. I remember when it came out, it was received with some reservations—it was buggy, particularly, but also the strange tone that meant you could walk into a village, fart forty times and leave beloved—but from beginning to end, bugs and all, it was an experience I met at its level and it worked perfectly. It promised so much for the future.

So you might wonder why it’s taken me four years to play Fable III. Well, because I’d heard (and in fact, seen) that it was complete pish. But for some reason I had bought it? And (apparently?) all the DLC? So I thought I might as well get it over with.

Let me say this: Fable III is a complete failure. It’s a failure of such magnitude that not only does it take what was good about Fable II and break it in several places in the name of improvement, you’re not sure Lionhead Studios were even trying.

It’s not the bugs! Well, in some cases it is the bugs. I mean, the criticised-for-being-slightly-too-hand-holdy breadcrumb trail, which worked completely in II, now disappears, doesn’t point the right direction, clips into the ground… it’s a disaster. The dog, a key part of II, is now totally unable to pathfind, barking for treasure before getting stuck on a wall and rotating on his axes. And “hand-holding” the innovation that Molyneux so carefully snake-oiled works only if you don’t run or, you know, go up a very slight incline or something, because then the other character can’t keep up and you both “hold hands” with six foot of air. Fable III is absolutely the buggiest game I have ever seen a major publisher put out. It’s pathetic.

But that’s all quibbly stuff, really. The kind of thing you can get over if the core is really solid. It isn’t. The core is a group of ideas that (potentially) sound like good ideas, but which after prototyping you’d definitely think “this doesn’t work” unless you’re (I guess?) on some kind of tight deadline where you say “fuck it, we’ve announced it, we’ll bodge it.”

A good example: No menus! So when you press start, you go into a magic room where you can do all the stuff you’d normally do in menus. Unless you pause in a cut-scene, when you get a menu. And if you want to do anything, like select a new weapon, it’s actually a menu, just in 3D and you have to use the triggers to control it. And if you want to see details you have to… use a menu anyway. Incredible.

The fact is that playing Fable III you have no idea why they’d make any decision they did unless they were some extreme pressure to finish something—anything!—because they’d already spent the money on John Cleese and Stephen Fry and Simon Pegg and… it’s most obvious when you finally get to the “real” game—acting as King of Albion.

This part is amazing. It belies a totally idiotic surface understanding of… fuck it, I don’t know, everything? You’re the king. You’re told “6.5 million people are going to die unless you have 6.5 million coins in your treasury at the end of the year.” Let’s put aside the biggest question of all (“How would having that money in the treasury help?”) and consider that, if you are playing an evil character, surely the aim would be to let everyone die? And why can’t you explain to people that there will be a war in less than a year and everyone needs to tighten their belt for a bit while you sort it out?

You end up in the absurd position where making tough decisions to get money in the treasury is simplistically treated as “evil” and good decisions—which cost more money—can only be paid for by owning all of Albion and collecting rent. So: to be a “good” king you have to buy houses from the people you will go on to rent to and profit from, therefore reducing the entire country to serfdom. So moral!

I’m actually pretty sure that they hacked the idea together anyway, considering that your evil brother tells you all the bad things he did were for the people, but there’s a cut-scene earlier where he explains how he’d see Albion burn before give it up (which doesn’t come to anything so I have to question if they remembered that they left that bit in.)

I think my favourite bit is the game tells you have a year, skips wildly between days so really there’s only something like five proper days (although in-game days pass, they don’t count, because who would find something like that totally immersion-breaking?) and when you reach “121 days to go” the game basically ends no matter what and without warning. Fuck’s sake.

Will I ever play it again? Fuck no. Though I had to play the DLC though to make sure it will never cross my diseased mind. It’s more of the same but mercifully brief.

Final Thought: Right at the beginning of the game you’re asked to let the girlfriend you’ve just met and have no feelings for because you’ve literally just met them die or some people you’ve definitely never met. If you let her live, your hero leaves the castle and you never see her again. You’ll wonder, at least briefly, why your hero doesn’t care and why she’s never even mentioned again, and you’ll later discover that there’s a quest where you can reconnect with her but it disappears for no reason half-way through the game because fuck you that’s why.

This essay is featured in Every Game I’ve Finished 14>24.