Here's Why Xbox 'Protected' the Development of Fable, Amid Layoffs and Studio Closures

Fable maker Playground Games has detailed how its upcoming RPG survived a decade in development, amid layoffs and studio closures across the rest of Xbox.

Early work on building Fable’s team began in 2017, just a year after Microsoft shut down classic Fable maker Lionhead Studios. 10 years on, Playground Games’ Fable will finally launch after a mammoth development, into a very different gaming landscape.

When work on Fable began, Xbox was still to acquire We Happy Few maker Compulsion Games, Psychonauts studio Double Fine, State of Decay developer Undead Labs, or Hellblade team Ninja Theory — all companies it subsequently cast adrift this summer. Xbox was yet to set up The Initiative, the team it pumped millions into for the purposes of making Perfect Dark, then closed after 7 years with nothing to show for it. There was no sign Xbox would splash out $7.5 billion on Bethesda (including id, MachineGames, and the now-divested Tango Gameworks). And there was certainly no inkling it would drop $68.7 billion on Activision Blizzard.

Likewise, there was no telling that Microsoft’s many acquisitions would be followed by successive waves of layoffs. 1,900 jobs were slashed in January 2024, many from the newly-acquired Activision Blizzard, while at least 650 staff were let go later that year, and Redfall maker Arkane Austin was closed. Last year, meanwhile, 9,000 staff departed Microsoft as the company pivoted towards AI spending, wiping out The Initiative and scores of workers from both Forza Motorsport team Turn 10 and veteran British outfit Rare, which saw its meandering work on Everwild ended after more than a decade.

And there were this year’s layoffs, the first to come from new Xbox boss Asha Sharma. These will ultimately end up hitting 3,200 workers, with significant doubt now placed on the future of Marvel’s Blade maker Arkane Lyon.

So, how did Fable survive all of that? Speaking to The Guardian, director Ralph Fulton explained that the Fable franchise simply remained “vital” to Xbox.

“I genuinely think Fable is an important game,” Fulton said. “What has protected us over a long development cycle is that so many people within Xbox view Fable as vital to the DNA of the platform.

“I would go a step further and say it’s important to video games as a whole,” he continued. “It offers a combination of elements that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

Video games do not typically get the luxury of having decade-long development cycles, and it does feel like Fable is one of Xbox’s few core brands that remain central to the platform, alongside Halo, Forza and Gears of War. Compared to these, it’s perhaps not a surprise to see Xbox push on with the game’s lengthy road to release, even as it ditched untested ideas like Everwild (which seemed some way from release still, even after a decade in the oven). And then there’s the fact that, while one team within Playground was busy building Fable, another was just as busy pumping out its hugely-successful and well-regarded Forza Horizon games, which will certainly have helped pay the bills.

Whatever the case, we’re very happy Fable is now nearing the end of its journey — and looking forward to playing it when it finally arrives on February 23, 2027.