You could say it’s about clear moral lessons, or about whimsical fantasy vibes. I’d argue community is just as essential. We learn fairy tales communally — at bedtime, in a classroom, around a campfire.
Sadly, Xbox’s forthcoming Fable reboot, in many ways the platonic ideal of a “fairy tale” game, will ditchthis tradition. You’re playing this one solo, folks. The original Fable checked all of the boxes of a good fairy tale: a classic good-versus-evil tale set in a high-fantasy version of Fake Britain.
You played as a hero (literally, the “Hero of Oakvale”) fighting against a guy who considered burning down villages his idea of a good time. Fable’s big innovation lay in its morality system: Depending on your actions, the hero’s appearance would change (ex: you’d grow devil horns if you were evil), as would the way the citizens of Albion would react to him. Just like the main characters of stories like Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and other quintessential fairy tales, you were consigned to live with the consequences of your actions — good or bad.
Its successors, Fable 2 and Fable 3, introduced cooperative gameplay, and to this day remain some of the best co-op action games on Xbox. In this first game, you could tell your friends stories about the particular twists and turns your Fable campaign took. In the second and third, they could live out those stories alongside you.
In Fable 2, second players, referred to as “Henchman,” could join the main character in wandering the world of Albion and beating up its various roving troves of bandits, hobbes, and other fantasy creatures. But Fable 2 made it crystal clear that whomever was holding onto controller #1 was the more important player. Player one could literally determine how much gold and XP was shared with their Henchman, who was also restricted from performing many basic gameplay actions, like opening chests.
Worst of all, Henchman couldn’t wander too far from the main player. But these limitations forced you to communicate, to strategize, and to shoulder the burden of responsibility for every kicked chicken. Fable 3 improved upon Fable 2’s co-operative mode in basically every single way.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
