Next year’s big Fable revival is being handled by Playground Games, the Xbox-owned studio behind the Forza Horizon series, taking over from Lionhead Studios. The developer just launched Forza Horizon 6 to near universal acclaim this year, but now it’s set to release Fable on February 23, 2027, and everyone’s eager to see what a fantasy RPG from a beloved franchise looks and plays like when it’s designed by a team that’s only ever made racing games.
The choice of Playground Games as Fable’s developer might seem like an odd one at first blush, but from the perspective of the studio, it’s an opportunity for them to prove themselves in a completely different space.
“I think there was a little bit of pride in proving we could cut it in a different genre,” Playground co-founder and Fable game director Ralph Fulton tells The Guardian, who points out the open-world format that both Fable and Forza Horizon share even though only one of those series takes place entirely behind the wheels of an automobile.
“It made sense not to fall too far from Horizon. This project definitely wasn’t going to have cars, but open worlds felt like an area where we had transferable skills,” says Fulton. Playground Games was brought under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella in 2018 (then Microsoft Studios), and there was zero hesitation years later when they were asked to tackle Fable.
“When Xbox mentioned Fable, every other opportunity dissolved into the background. It was all we could think about,” says Fulton.