EGTV: Fable 2

By Robert Purchese Published 25 May, 2007

It's all about love.

Lingering lovingly on Eurogamer TV this morning is a new developer diary for Fable 2.

In it, we go behind the scenes at Lionhead and learn about the importance of love in the game.

"You feeling loved is really important to us," harps creator Peter Molyneux.

And he's not alone, joined by a handful of key members of staff who each flesh out ways in which you'll feel that all important inner glow in Fable 2. There's romance, for instance, which will gradually build up between you and another character as you engage them in conversation, buy them gifts, and even go on walks with them.

And then there's that dog - the one Peter Molyneux unveiled at GDC - something he's particularly proud of.

"We could have given you this dog and made him controllable by you, that would have been the easy thing to do," Molyneux added. "But we've been brave about this, we've given you no control over the dog."

Instead it will respond to how you treat it. It's "man's best friend" that will love you unconditionally, throwing itself into battle to protect you and following you unquestioningly down either good or evil paths.

The trailer also has some in-engine footage at the end, and it's all looking very nice. But we've been down this hype-machine road before, so we'll remain sceptical. Will it be mindless "thumb-candy", as one developer describes other games, or something more? We shall see.

Fable 2 is due for release on Xbox 360 in 2008.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • gizmo #1 5 years ago

    Go on walks with them?

    For God's sake, we're not 12.

  • souljacker2000 #2 5 years ago

    I aint going on a walk with em... love it or lump it... bitch

  • The-Bodybuilder #3 5 years ago

    I have a sneaking feeling that this has nothing to do with love it all.

    Molyneux simply played ico and loved it, then wants you to get attatched to something (this dog) only for him to kill it at the end.

    Cheap.

  • morriss #4 5 years ago

    When do I start receiving payment, that's what I want to know?! ;)

  • Haloboy #5 5 years ago

    Bark!
    bark! bark!

    Ok, hang on....

    bark!

    I said hold on! I'm coming goddammit!

    yap yap yap yap!

    /kills




  • TwistidChimp #6 5 years ago

    So long as there's a mission where the dog alerts you to someone trapped down a well, I'll be pleased.

  • RexRunti #7 5 years ago

    Christ am I the only person who sees the potential of the dog? Fable2 could be the best game ever... but will probably just be "quite good".

  • The-Bodybuilder #8 5 years ago

    >"Christ am I the only person who sees the potential of the dog?"

    Oh don't get me wrong, the potential is there.
    I just don't trust Molyneux's reason for adding it. Is it really to make a different kind of control interface? Or is it simply to get you attatched, so he can kill at the end and hope you cry?

  • Mr_Brown #9 5 years ago

    The only way this bloody dog idea is going to work, is if the world is the same size as Oblivion. Last Fable was just too small and linear. Walking a dog through that crap would just be tedious.

  • SBfistfun #10 5 years ago

    Peter aural-effluent-spew more like.

    I want flood 2

  • kangarootoo #11 5 years ago

    I'm not convinced on the whole "this game will make you feel loved" angle. Thats a pretty hard target to set yourself.

    Now some parts of Fable did connect with me emotionally (I genuinely felt bad after hitting the bullied kid in the first game section, whilst trying to purposely play a bad character), but thats not quite the same as what is being described here.

    Seems to me that PM needs a hook that he can use to promote the game as doing something completely new. "Love" is something that it can probably be claimed has not been done in a game before. Whether or not Fable actually meets that brief, or just gives a new name to something that we have all seen in previous titles, is yet to be seen.

    I suppose the dog could be quite fun, but I don't see it as groundbreaking. If it is impervious to harm it might be quite a nice sidekick to cart around with you, but still nothing that revolutionary.

    If you have to defend it in combat however, I would have very grave concerns. Protecting npcs is rarely fun, and the sections in Fable 1 where you had to engage in similar activities were a big pain in the restarting-cos-he-wandered-off-and-got-killed butt.

  • bioreit #12 5 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    You should check out all the previous Molyneux stuff about the dog in Fable 2 - it cannot be killed.

    It can get seriously injured, but you never need to wait for it - it will always, always, always track you down and find you again, no matter how far away from it you run (so no having to wait for it to catch up, etc, etc).

  • kangarootoo #13 5 years ago

    That sounds like good news then on all those fronts.

    I recall the followers in Jade Empire could never get stuck or left behind. Your team mates in Marvel Ultimate Alliance behave in a similar way. Let all devs learn from this in the future.

    With this news in mind, I'm actually looking forward to the dog more than any half arsed attempts at making me feel loved (relatively speaking).

  • Tomo #14 5 years ago

    Sounds great to me. You're all a bunch of whingebags frankly.

  • dirigiblebill #15 5 years ago

    This could be interesting, pending more detail on how exactly the dog will respond to/learn from your behaviour. Somehow Pete's purportedly earth-shattering comment 'I don't give you a button to control it' doesn't inspire much confidence.

  • bioreit #16 5 years ago

    I agree kanga - but the dog is part of the 'love' attempts. As mentioned before, the dog will follow you to the ends of the earth - Molyneux asked us to imagine running off and leaving the dog injured after a fight (obviously while playing in "Evil Bastard" mode) and going off and doing your own thing.

    Then, a couple of days later, in the middle of a thunder storm, you're sitting in a bar, and the door opens and your dog drags its wet, bedraggled, crippled body towards your degenerate self and falls at your feet, happy to have finally been returned to its master.

    I agree with Peter that no matter how cruel you are, that could tug anyone's heart strings...

    Edit 1: Should have believed my sisters - men cannot multitask. In this case, typing and chatting on the phone.
    Edited by bioreit at 25/05/07 @ 14:29

  • The-Bodybuilder #17 5 years ago

    >"Then, a couple of days later, in the middle of a thunder storm, you're sitting in a bar, and the door opens and your dog drags its wet, bedraggled, crippled body towards your degenerate self and falls at your feet, happy to have finally been returned to its master. "

    Does this go along with you dropping an apple to the ground, only for it to grow into a great tree?
    That's the limiting factor with fable. It tried to express our imagination, but it just cannot, not game can.

    Maybe this will....maybe.

  • ChromeMud #18 5 years ago

    I hope there's a humping-your-leg mini game!

  • kangarootoo #19 5 years ago

    @bioreit

    "Then, a couple of days later, in the middle of a thunder storm..."

    I'm not sure if that is PM's own pitch or you making an example of the sort of thing he is talking about, but that reads as a cutscene story board to me. My point being that everything looks good on paper, where directorial control is absolute. Its the point at which the player gets involved that things can go off the rails, unless their presence has been accounted for (i.e. by the application of quality game design).

    I'm not saying PM is not good at game design, and I don't really want us to head off on that discussion (as it happens far too often when his name gets mentioned and never really goes anywhere). I'm just saying that describing situations where the presence of a dog might make someone feel empathy does not directly translate into game situations that generate the same feelings.

    I remain optimistic as I rather liked Fable. But to be honest I expect more of a the same, i.e. a game that is pretty fun to play, but doesn't change my world as the hype suggested it would. No bad thing in the end really.

  • kangarootoo #20 5 years ago

    @The Bodybuilder

    "It tried to express our imagination, but it just cannot, no game can."

    Thats a great line. I may pinch that for future use if thats ok (even if its not ok, I'll still probably pinch it, but I might give credit).

  • T4RG4 #21 5 years ago

    Same old, same old...

    A dog? wow...

    Feeling loved? wow...

  • ZuluHero #22 5 years ago

    @bodybuilder
    "I have a sneaking feeling that this has nothing to do with love it all.

    Molyneux simply played ico and loved it, then wants you to get attatched to something (this dog) only for him to kill it at the end.

    Cheap. "

    If i have to spend more than 30 minutes getting the bloody thing to follow me or do what i want he won't have the chance to. I'll have beaten him to it ;)
    Edited by ZuluHero at 25/05/07 @ 15:55

  • crazyhorse174 #23 5 years ago

    Molyneux really annoys me. It's like he thinks that he's better than everyone else.

    I'm sure this is the same Molyneux who said, after the release of the original Fable, that he would never speak about a game before it was released, in case he exaggerated what was going to be in it.

    Fuck off Molyneux. I'm sick of your shite.

  • onyxbox #24 5 years ago

    Fuck off Molyneux. I'm sick of your shite.

    My sentiment exactly. As The Bodybuilder points out, it’s all been done before in ico, shadow of colossus and as for all that indirect control of a dog bollocks…. What the f’ck was Nintendogs Pete?

    Jeez…. Anyway, have a nice bank holiday weekend. :-D

  • The-Bodybuilder #25 5 years ago

    >"Thats a great line. I may pinch that for future use if thats ok (even if its not ok, I'll still probably pinch it, but I might give credit). "

    It's copywritten damn it. :)

  • _Price_ #26 5 years ago

    Bugger it, I'll just train the thing to avoid unecessarily canine-unfriendly plot twists.

    Well, either that or buy a leash.....

  • vmagic #27 5 years ago

    quote: "I have a sneaking feeling that this has nothing to do with love it all.

    Molyneux simply played ico and loved it, then wants you to get attatched to something (this dog) only for him to kill it at the end."/quote


    So true, I enjoyed fable... really I did, it had issues ofc but did I think twice about decapitating my sister for a sword of uberness? I THINK NOT

    "final boss: Young Jon, It is time to fulfil your destiny, strike down the labrador - thus spilling holy canine blood upon this 70" battlesword of demonic power and take your place as ruler of the universe

    me: k... *THWACK*"

  • captainrentboy #28 5 years ago

    The graphics are looking quite nice though, in a Kameo-esque kind of way. Ohhh and that's my TV on the wall in the video, my TV in Lionhead studios!!! I'm chuffed!

  • Monkey-Wizard-Ken #29 5 years ago

    Old dog, new tricks

  • MasterControlProgram #30 5 years ago

    Peter Molyneux run out of ideas after the first Syndicate, that remains the peak of his career.

    He's one of the most overrated guys in the business - we must admit he's always been very good in PR, autopromoting himself as the first and true 'designer' of videogames, as the creative mind capable of gently but firmly leading nerd programmers and code monkeys toward the creation of masterworks acclaimed by critics; but that's where his talent mostly lies and ends: marketing.

    /wooops, looks like all of this has been discussed before ;-)
    Edited by MasterControlProgram at 26/05/07 @ 22:50

  • Lukus #31 5 years ago

    Seeing as how in the last one you could choose to sleep with women and stuff, and seeing as how you're supposed to love your dog in this one.....

    I'll just say it- CAN I SLEEP WITH MY DOG?

  • cyber_nicco #32 5 years ago

    I didn't kill my sister at the end.

    You sick fuck.

  • QuickTyne #33 5 years ago

    My mate works for a developer in the north of england, and he knows someone who went for an interview at lionhead recently.
    ...said their other project was a game where you had a survive disasters like in Day After Tomorrow. Like save people, be friends with them, emotional wotnots. Gonna be their next big thing, lots of adventure platforming craziness with the world smashing around you, and helping your team around the levels and keeping them alive like in Ico. so i guess it's like Ico but in a modern city with more people to help.

    sounded good i reckon.

  • _Price_ #34 5 years ago

    "....keeping them alive like in Ico...."

    They'd better be a damn sight more helpful than that! :) I can't believe how lazy that girl is, like the hostages in Counter Strike....

  • JayPee #35 5 years ago

    Umm, there's a dog in Harvest Moon. - Mine was called (under advisement from the girlfriend at the time - "Truffle";)

    It used to go off, do it's own thing, and depending on how you treated it it would come when you called and stuff. You could take it o the beach and trainit up in frisbee. You could throw a ball for it, give it food etc etc.

    And a horse, that did similar things.

    So how is this so bloody revolutionary?

  • jachap #36 5 years ago

    I bet the dog betrays you.

    All great games have a shock betrayal by a character you've had to save twice in earlier levels!