Molyneux: Fable Journey no melee, guns

Kinect game Fable: The Journey will not have melee attacks and will not have ranged attacks from guns, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has revealed.

Instead, heroes will rely solely on magical attacks to alight Hobbes and other fantasy foes.

"We could have done melee weapons, but the one thing I hate about melee weapons, and guns as well, is that the human brain is encoded to expect recoil from those things," Molyneux told OXM.

"Whenever I swing a sword and I hit something on screen, the visuals and the sound aren't enough. We could have done what Zelda did well on Twilight Princess, where it doesn't really matter what you do - what happens on-screen is the best thing - but I wanted people to feel powerful, to feel power, and that's all about you.

"The thing about magic is there's nothing encoded in your mind about how it should feel," he added.

"So no guns, and no swords."

Previous Fable games have relied on three combat disciplines: magic, melee and ranged. Note that Molyneux hasn't specifically referred to the removal of ranged combat from Fable: The Journey - only "guns".

Magic in Fable: The Journey will, as a result, be developed so that effects can be manipulated by hand movements. You can shape plasma balls, either by stretching them to hit more enemies orby squeezing them to pack a more concentrated wallop.

Fable: The Journey will be a relatively quick project for Lionhead and be built upon Unreal Engine 3 - middleware the studio hasn't before used. A playable version of Fable: The Journey will be available at colossal German game show Gamescom next week. Molyneux hopes it will dispel some of the negativity caused by the on-rails Fable: The Journey reveal at E3 earlier this year.