GTA 6‘s November release date caused other video games to part like the Red Sea, huddling together in the slightly safer confines of the months before and after. One such game is the upcoming Fable reboot, and its director feels fine about launching next to other big hitters not called GTA 6.
Take a quick look at our new games release calendar and you’ll notice that the months around GTA 6 are unusually swamped with notable releases. Next February is particularly busy with Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, God of War: Laufey, Persona 4 Revival and Fable all coming out within mere days of each other.
When asked about launching into a packed month, Playground Games general manager and the game’s director Ralph Fulton tells IGN that the studio doesn’t “run scared of other big games” because the return of Fable is nothing to scoff at either.
“We’re a big game ourselves,” Fulton explains. “We hold ourselves to high standards. I’m happy to go toe-to-toe with a bunch of other games.” But like a monster on the hill, “there’s just one that I’m happy to avoid entirely.”
While Fulton’s not naming any names, he alludes to the fact that GTA 6 and the packed schedule around it did, in fact, cause the open-world fantasy game to change course once before. “I think the rationale behind moving us out of October, the date that we were in previously, is pretty apparent to everybody,” he says.
Fable was originally set to come out sometime in 2026, before its delay into February 23, 2027. And it makes total sense – publisher Xbox Game Studios already has another two big guns chainsawing their way to release in October: Gears of War: E-Day and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.
For those out of the loop, Fable was a beloved series across the original Xbox and Xbox 360 generations made by the now-defunct Lionhead Studios. Forza Horizon maker Playground Games is now reviving the very cheeky, very British, sometimes very reactive fairytale series more than a decade after its last game.
Fable’s combat shows a lot of promise, but I’m glad it’s not launching this year