“Fable’s original combat has a legacy of being quite accessible,” so the RPG developers don’t want to change that with the new game.

Fable’s developers say their goal is to keep the RPG’s combat “accessible” in line with the series’ legacy.

Speaking to Edge magazine, associate director Will Kennedy explained that the combat in the original Fable games “has a legacy of being quite accessible, so that’s something we took into account when developing our combat system.” But while that means you’re not in for Dark Souls-style fights, it doesn’t mean there aren’t different forms of complexity hidden in the combat system.

Arrows, for example, can point to certain parts of the body. If you hit the leg of an undead “hollow” enemy, for example, it will fall to the ground and crawl towards you. “If you decapitate them,” explains Craig Littler, another associate director, “they don’t know where to go.” […] When you do that to an enemy at a distance […] “They’re just shooting in all directions.”

Elsewhere, the pair explain that the ‘Befowl’ spell, which turns enemies into chickens, behaves differently against Hollow; “They turn into undead chickens,” Kennedy explains. “And if you use Fireball on a chicken, it turns into a roast chicken. There are a lot of little details.”

The accessibility of Fable’s combat is part of a larger move away from relying on fighting. Littler explains that instead of always fighting, some missions will depend on dialogue options or the game’s reputation system. “There are missions that are much broader,” he says. “More exploration, even a puzzle or two along the way. One of the things we’re really proud of is the variety of activities and how they all come together to tell a story that you feel really invested in.”

Fable’s combat has a lot of promise, but I’m glad it’s not releasing this year.