Fable III is the third video game in the Fable series of action role-playing open world video games . The game was developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The story focuses on the player character's struggle to overthrow the King of Albion by forming alliances and building support for a revolution. After a successful revolt, the player becomes the monarch and is tasked with attempting to defend Albion from a great evil. The game was released on 29 October 2010 for Xbox 360 and on 20 May 2011 for PC via both Games for Windows and Steam. The PC version includes a Hardcore mode and 3D functionality not found in the Xbox 360 version.^[5] The game includes the voice talents of Ben Kingsley, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg, Michael Fassbender, Zoe Wanamaker, Bernard Hill, Edward Hardwicke and John Cleese.

Plot[link]

Fable III is set 50 years after the events of Fable II. The game is set on the fictional continent of Albion, which is entering the age of industry. The King/Queen, the hero/player character of Fable II, has died and left the Kingdom of Albion to their son, Logan (voiced by Michael Fassbender), the player's older brother. Some NPCs allude to how Logan has "changed" in the last four years of his rule, becoming excessively tyrannical. The player begins the game investigating rumours that Logan had a citizen of Albion executed, causing a group of citizens to protest. After the player character intervenes, Logan presents the player with the first of the game's numerous moral choices. The player is tasked with deciding whether the group of protesters are executed, or whether the player's love-interest is executed instead. Following the decision, the player escapes Logan's castle along with their mentor, Sir Walter Beck (Bernard Hill) and their butler, Jasper (John Cleese).

The player then, at the behest of Theresa (Zoe Wanamaker), the enigmatic Seeress of the Spire, starts to gather allies to aid in a revolution against Logan. The allies they gain include Sabine (Ben Kingsley), the leader of the "Dwellers," a nomadic community that lives in the mountains; Major Swift and Ben Finn (Simon Pegg) from the Royal Army in command of a remote fort; Page (Naomie Harris), the leader of the "Bowerstone Resistance"; and Kalin, the leader of Aurora, a desert land across the ocean. When attempting to gain the support of Kalin, the hero learns that a creature called the "Crawler, ruler of the Darkness," the forces of the Darkness which have already devastated Aurora, intends to exterminate all life in the Kingdom of Albion. It is revealed that Logan's reason for treating his people so harshly is to raise money for an army to defend against the Crawler.

The player then leads a coup d'état and becomes the King/Queen, at which point the player is given the choice to keep the promises made to those who aided in the revolution at great expense to the treasury, or betray those promises in order to raise money for the defense of Albion through industrialization and using natural resources. The player can also utilize the treasury money for personal purposes, or transfer personal money from the player's own supply to the treasury.

If the player chooses to be a "great" ruler, the treasury will be vastly drained and the only way the player can offset this is by transferring several million gold from their personal funds to the treasury. With 6,500,000 gold in the treasury at the time of the Crawler attack, the player will be able to fully fund an army that can successfully defend the entire kingdom. With no money in the treasury and thus no army to defend Albion, the civilian casualties inflicted by the Crawler's attack amount to 6,500,000. If this happens, the world will be largely absent of civilians upon completion of the main quest. If the player passes lots of time by sleeping, working and increasing the royal treasure income significantly, plebeians will start to return. If the player was a benevolent leader but lost large sums of civilians, many citizens who return will still praise the player. However if the player raises money to fund the army through exploitation or tom-foolery, then they will be hated regardless of whether the kingdom was saved. The player can also take on the extreme evil morph. Also, it is possible to both raise funds for an army and be a benevolent ruler(in this case the player must donate his/her personal gold to the treasury until the debt is paid and the amount of 6,500,000 gold is put together), this results in the player monarch being loved by the entire kingdom and no civilian casualties.

Cast[link]

Michael Fassbender - Logan
Naomie Harris - Page
John Cleese - Jasper
Bernard Hill - Sir Walter Beck
Nicholas Hoult - Elliot
Stephen Fry - Reaver
Zoë Wanamaker - Theresa
Ben Kingsley - Sabine
Simon Pegg - Ben Finn
Sean Pertwee - Saker
David de Keyser - Ransom Locke
Nicholas Boulton - Commander Milton
Edward Hardwicke - Major Swift
Jason Manford - Private Jammy
Jonathan Ross - Barry Hatch
Sebastian Abineri - Professor Ernest Faraday
Richard Coyle - Petitioner
Daniel Curshen - Lazlo
Mark Heap - Brian
Liam O'Brien - Hob
Rachel Atkins - Various Voices
Lucy Gaskell - Various Voices

Development[link]

At the beginning of the Gamescon announcement of Fable III, Molyneux stated that the game was taking a different theme compared to the others as he believes the third game in a series to be hard to do correctly. "If all the rules have been established and all you offer is a new story and a handful of locations, people will start to lose interest."^[6]

In an interview with OXM UK, he (Molyneux) spoke about how Fable was at risk of becoming a generic game where the player started off underpowered and weak but slowly got more powerful after they met the bad guy. After the player killed the bad guy, the credits would roll. Believing that is the formula that applies to many games, he asked why games "end at potentially the most exciting bit?" It was this that formed the basis of Fable III, where the player can overthrow the tyrant before becoming ruler themselves. He stated that it was when the player was ruler that the consequences of "who you are going to be, are you going to be good or evil, cruel or kind" stopped applying only to the player, but affected the entire country.^[6]

Molyneux hinted that there may be drawbacks to leaving your castle too often to investigate crimes or fight wars, asking

^[6]

Talking about the inspiration for Fable III, Molyneux said "if in Fable I the inspiration was folklore and in Fable II the inspiration was King Arthur and Robin Hood, then Fable III is definitely the rebels and monarchs – both modern-day and historic."^[6]

There are also new takes on traditional Fable concepts such as morphing, where the player's weapon change depending on what they do, and their alignment. If the Hero kills large numbers of skeletons his/her weapon will appear to be made of bones, whereas if they go around killing innocent people their weapon will begin to drip with blood. The weapon will also level throughout the game, making it sharper and more deadly. Another example is the "Extreme Emote" system. For example, if someone angers the Hero, they can show them their true nature, with either demonic or angelic wings sprouting out of their back.

Lionhead associate sound producer Georg Backer announced at the Develop conference in Brighton that Fable III would contain over 47 hours of recorded speech. This rises from 36 hours of recorded speech in Fable II. Backer said that the AI is the "biggest chunk of dialogue." Backer also said that the over 47 hours include "gossip lines" in which the "AI talk to you about what is happening in the game." The "30 or 40" different types of AI characters each have "about 2,000 lines." Three writers wrote the 460,000 recorded words in the game and it took more than 80 actors to voice them.^[7] Many lines are ones that previously appeared in Fable II, so how many hours of vocal track are original recordings is unknown.

Downloadable content[link]

Various downloadable content has been announced by Microsoft for release on 23 November ranging from dyes and extra hairstyles to new quests, much of which is actually just locked content that is already included on the game disk but requires players to pay for it separately to unlock it.^[8][9]

• Free Weapon Pack adds the hammer 'Bloodstone Bludgeon' and 'Gusket's Musket' rifle, which will be added to your gift queue in the Sanctuary; and then become available when you unlock weapons in the storyline.
• Understone Quest Pack will allow players to venture into Understone, a "mysterious town built beneath the streets of Bowerstone," to find a new quest with moral decisions to make. The DLC also adds a replayable shooting range at the Mercenary Camp and arena challenges in Reaver's Mansion. Players will receive prizes for beating high scores.
• Traitor's Keep Quest Pack continues the story after the end of Fable III, after the ruler is nearly assassinated, he or she must investigate a disturbance at a prison and uncover the ones responsible for the attempt on his or her life. Three new regions, 10 new achievements, and a new robotic dog breed.
• Exclusive Hair Pack features corn rows, afro and asymmetrical bob styles
• Reaver Industries Hero Outfit
• 5 Star Dog Potion and Dye Pack
• Free Yule hat
• Dog Breed Set allows the player to change the breed of their dog, transforming it into either a Poodle, a Doberman Pinscher, or a German Shepherd Dog. Contains one potion per breed.
• Red Setter Dog Potion allows the player to change the breed of their dog, transforming it into an Irish Setter.
• Male and Female Highlander Outfits and Highlander Tattoo Set can be obtained for free by using a download code found inside the Standard Edition of the game, but are still available to purchase without the code.
• Dog Outfit
• Free Guard Outfit gives the player a free guard outfit and also allows players who haven't purchased the Traitor's Keep Quest pack to play with those who have purchased it.

The PC version will have all the Limited Collector's Edition content and 9/14 DLC content released on the Xbox 360 version included for free. The last five items are not included and must be purchased.

Fable: Coin Golf[link]

An exclusive mini-game called Fable Coin Golf developed by Ideaworks Game Studios, in close conjunction with Lionhead, was released for Windows Phone 7 on 30 March 2011. Played from an overhead perspective, your quest is to rid the land of evil and conquer each area by getting your Hero Puck into the Pillar of Light in as few shots as possible. Gold earned on the phone can be transferred to your Fable III game on Xbox 360 or PC and completion of each of the 3 chapters unlocks a unique weapon in Fable III.^[10]

Marketing[link]

Shortly before Gamescom 2009, images of famous revolutionaries and quotations appeared on Lionhead's website, causing discussion about what the next game Lionhead was developing. During the press conference of Gamescom, where Fable 3 was announced by Peter Molyneux, Lionhead had decorated the walls with medieval shields and banners.^[6]

Lionhead announced in August 2010 that there would be a companion game to Fable 3.^[11] Peter Molyneux was quick to say that it would not be like Pub Games for Fable 2 and hinted that it would utilise a mobile-phone. The official reveal was made on September 28, 2010 for a smart-phone application titled "Kingmaker"^[12] The game consists of players marking real-world locations for the two factions in the game, the Royals or the Rebels. The game earns players power-ups and gold to use in Fable 3. The game was announced for use in the United Kingdom and Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.

Retail editions[link]

The Xbox 360 standard and limited edition was released on the 29 October 2010, with the PC version was released in May 2011. Xbox games that were preordered (both standard and limited editions) in participating stores, were given a code for a special weapon, a code for tattoos, and a code to transfer the villager created from the Villager Maker to the game on the release date.^[13]

Standard Edition[link]

• Xbox 360 The Standard Edition available on Xbox 360 contains the standard game disk, a game manual and standard plastic casing. Lionhead Studios' Peter Molyneux announced as well, that Fable III will also (like Fable II) be released in episodes on Xbox Live Marketplace, some time after the retail version will hit the market. The first episode will be available free of charge.
• PC Both a retail version and a Games for Windows – LIVE exclusive downloadable release will be available.^[14]

Limited Collector's Edition[link]

• Xbox 360 The "Limited Collector's Edition" contains a standard game disk, a game manual, a new in-game quest, limited edition Fable 3 playing cards, a "Guild Seal Coin" with good and evil sides to aid the player in making moral decisions, a new "Boxer" dog breed and two new outfits; one for male, one female, a faux book and a new region with a family and a new weapon.^[15][16]
• PC All Standard Editions of Fable III on PC have contents of the Limited Collector's Edition included for free in the game.

Controller[link]

Lionhead has also announced they will release a Fable 3 limited edition wireless controller for Xbox 360 on 5 October 2010.^[17] The controller will come with a code to unlock a unique tattoo for the game. There is currently no other way to unlock this unique tattoo as of yet.

Book[link]

A book titled Fable: The Balverine Order was released in North America and Europe in October 2010.^[18] The book came with a code for a unique weapon called the Shardborne sword for Fable 3.^[19]

Reception[link]

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	(X360) 80.51%[20] (PC) 72.18%[21]
Metacritic	(X360) 80/100[22] (PC) 75/100[23]
Review scores
Publication	Score
1UP.com	B+[24]
Computer and Video Games	9.2/10[25]
Edge	7/10[26]
Eurogamer	8/10[27]
Game Informer	9/10[28]
GameSpot	(X360) 7.5/10[29] (PC) 7/10[30]
GameTrailers	8.9/10[31]
IGN	(X360) 8.5/10[32] (PC) 6/10[33]
X-Play	[34]
Joystiq	[35]
Hardcore Gamer	5/5[36]

Fable III received generally positive reception on the Xbox 360. IGN gave the Xbox 360 version an 8.5/10, praising the final segment of the game involving your role as king or queen, but criticizing its slow beginning and a lack of innovation. GameSpot gave the game a 7.5/10, saying "This gorgeous world is brimming with humor and personality" but felt "a bevy of technical problems and overly simplified gameplay distract from the fun."^[37]Official Xbox Magazine said "Fable III is most memorable not because it makes you laugh, but because it also makes you care. If a spouse gets carved up in your absence, you'll feel pangs of guilt. When your dog saves your bacon during a fight, you'll feel pride."^[38]

Although it received an initial positive reception on the Xbox 360 there was a lack of support for issues that occurred with an in game quest called "The Game" for many a glitch in this particular quest left the player stuck in a mini world unable to complete the quest, cancel the quest or get out of the world. Attempts to contact Lionhead Studios via e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook has returned no responses to when if every this glitch will be fixed since the glitches were initially found on first day of the games release.

The PC version of Fable III received more mixed reviews. IGN gave Fable III (PC) a 6/10, calling it "a royal disappointment" with "interface not well tailored to the PC platform", "uneven story and pacing", "dull combat" and "repetitive quests".^[33] Gamespot gave it a score of 7/10, saying "It lands on the PC with graphical enhancements and tougher combat" but criticized the "simplified gameplay" which "still distract from the fun."^[39]

Sales[link]

As of March 2012, Fable 3 has sold 6 million copies across all platforms.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lionhead's Official Website
• Unofficial Fable wiki
• Fable III at the Internet Movie Database
• Fable III Villager Maker
• Fable III Kingmaker