Fable Legends Previews

The Xbox One- and Windows 10-exclusive, free-to-play RPG Fable Legends is the subject of a handful of new previews, thanks to its hands-on showing at this year’s GDC and PAX East events.

GamesRadar:

Players will have access to four of the game’s expanding cast of heroes (new heroes will be released every few weeks) on a rotating basis. Grow attached to a character and you can pay a small fee (either using real money, or ‘˜silver’, a collectible currency in the game) in order to use them whenever you want, not just when they are in the free rotation. The creators hope to make its money by convincing you to invest in certain heroes as well as, of course, offering a vast array of different hats and items with which to customise those characters.

This approach is a gamble, not only because free-to-play is a loaded term, but also because, unlike League of Legends, this game is not being positioned as a competitive eSport. There aren’t two-equally arranged sides and, according to David Eckelberry, Fable Legend’s director, this set-up makes the game (an absolute nightmare to balance.) Without a healthy competitive scene around the game, is it possible for Fable Legends to achieve the kind of success seen by its newfound rivals in the world of PC strategy games?

GameRevolution:

In practice, it’s the Villain’s role to defeat the party by whatever means necessary by controlling everything from where redcaps and ogres spawn, where gates appear to slow Heroes, and how traps are laid on the battlefield. Before the Heroes can move onto the following segments of a level, the Villain has a limited amount of time and overall creature points to increase the difficulty of the encounter. As the Heroes engage with the Villian’s minions, he can control the placement of enemies on the board in real-time, setting up distractions and ambushes. Since players can be revived after falling in battle, it’s worth surrounding fallen Heroes with explosives and resistance to prevent their brethren from reaching them.

Party members, on the other hand, must work together to clear the level; in this case, the town outskirts arranged in a sort of labyrinthine garden layered with stone bridges, foliage, and many wooden platforms where redcaps can attempt sniping your party from higher ground. It’s up to the spellcasters and archers to take them out from afar while the tanks and brawlers keep them at bay, but that’s only if your party chooses to stay together. Sometimes it’s better to spread out and confuse the Villain so that your party can avoid being hit all at once, though it does make each character more vulnerable.

GameInformer:

Before I got my hands on the game, I walked around the demo area to see what I was up against. It was an unremarkable setup monitors, controllers, and two guys with headsets frantically trying to kill monsters. Then I walked around to the other side. Two other players completed the four-person team. One was using an Xbox One controller, while his compatriot was sniping enemies with his bow using a mouse and keyboard. It looked like I was going to see how well the game’s cross-platform play worked.

Ultimately, the interaction between platforms was seamless; if I hadn’t seen the keyboard, I wouldn’t have noticed. That counts as a win for Microsoft and Lionhead, since they don’t want players to focus on what they’re playing on. There’s a game, after all.

And Twinfinite:

The game’s design is a familiar one, as it looks like the Albion we have gotten to know over the years. The beautiful graphics are definitely something to look at, and it’s by far the most well-developed Fable multiplayer experience yet. Remember Fable III’˜s co-op? Lionhead has really put their effort into the game’s multiplayer mechanics to get it to run smoothly, and it works.

Fable LegendsFrom magic, range, and up close and personal combat, the different fighting variations in the game are each different enough from each other that it makes playing as the different characters more attractive because it allows for new experiences each time. Within every four hero versus one villain battle, every player is required to work together in order to take down the one player who controls the villain character, who is can set brutal traps, and commands deadly creatures to make the heroes’ job much harder.