Microsoft's first party studios have begun hitting their stride finally, with Xbox launching game after game to widespread acclaim. Indiana Jones launched late last year, delivering the most authentic video game recreation of the franchise to date.
Also, Xbox's most recent title, Avowed, garnered positive reception from critics and fans alike, and Microsoft has sure-fire hits like DOOM: The Dark Ages in the hopper for later this year as well. Gears: E-Day, Ninja Gaiden 4, and Blade as well all paint a strong future for Xbox Game Pass in the long and near term. One of the most major anticipated upcoming Xbox games has been delayed, though.
We've been investigating rumors that upcoming action-RPG "Fable" from Playground Games of Forza Horizon fame has been delayed. Today, Microsoft confirmed that information to be true.
Speaking on the official Xbox Podcast, Xbox Game Studios lead Craig Duncan revealed that Fable has been delayed from its planned launch window of 2025, out to 2026.
Responding to Xbox's Tina Amini, Duncan described where Playground currently is with Fable progress. "We're really excited about [Fable's] progress and where Playground Games are. We previously announced Fable as 2025. We are actually going to give Fable more time. It's going to ship in 2026 now. While I know that's not maybe the news people want to hear, what I want is to assure people that it's definitely worth the wait."
Duncan lauded Playground Games' pedigree, noting the quality of Forza Horizon and the quality bar the studio sets for itself. Duncan described Fable as having "amazing gameplay" in the most "realized" incarnation of the world of Albion yet. The podcast video also featured some new footage of Fable too, offering a glimpse at the latest build. And oh boy, it sure looks immaculate. Definitely check that out (and it features the werewolf I previously teased on my Xbox Two Podcast a few weeks ago).
Not entirely unexpected
It's not entirely unexpected that Fable got delayed. The game is among the most expensive and most ambitious being developed internally at Xbox Game Studios right now. Playground hired in major talent from studios like Rockstar and CD Projekt RED to truly deliver a "AAA" RPG experience, which is something that has arguably eluded Microsoft since the Xbox 360 days, at least with regards to story-based character-driven games. Perhaps there's also the Grand Theft Auto 6 aspect. GTA 6 is supposed to launch later in 2025, and I suspect virtually every other AAA game in existence will want to avoid that launch window.
It's great to see the transparency either way, and hopefully we'll see Fable emerge as a true landmark moment for Xbox's first-party output. I do wonder what Xbox's ecosystem will look like as we head towards 2026, though.
Indeed, a lot of the discourse around Xbox of late has revolved around how committed, or uncommitted, Xbox is to the future of its own hardware ecosystem. Xbox's Tina Amini put the question to Craig Duncan himself during the podcast, and he offered a bit of a coy response.
Tina Amini asked Craig Duncan, "What should the Xbox community take away from the decision we've made to put games on more platforms?"
"I think it's good for gamers, good for our studios," Craig says. "Our studios make amazing games, we want our games to reach the broadest audience possible. If I think back to when I was studio head of Sea of Thieves, having Sea of Thieves on multiple platforms helps players play together. I think it's good for gamers, it's good for our studios to reach more players."
With respect to Craig Duncan, he didn't really answer Tina Amini's question about what the Xbox community should take away from it. It was a bit of an odd segment, where both parties avoided mentioning "PlayStation," and simply referred to "more platforms" instead.
Microsoft's messaging on the so-called "Latitude" Xbox strategy has generally been awful so far, with little effort made to convince Xbox fans that Microsoft's internal hardware efforts aren't gradually slipping by the wayside. Xbox hardware has declined almost quarterly for a couple of years now, with very little effort made towards marketing or promoting Microsoft as a hardware vendor.
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The Xbox community is fairly evenly split on the damage this could do to the desirability of Xbox hardware, which could lead to a departure of third-party developers down the line. There's little evidence of that happening today, but it's not difficult to extrapolate what might happen afterwards.
Either way, Microsoft is forging ahead with first-party Xbox console hardware, with Xbox lead Phil Spencer saying he wants hardware to win on "differentiation." With more money than ever subsidizing Xbox thanks to its support of PlayStation, perhaps there's a real chance the next Xbox platform could have some kind of "X factor" (lol) that will see it reach new audiences. If Fable does land as well as Microsoft hopes, perhaps it will lead to a bump in Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S sales too in 2026.
On the show, Craig Duncan also discussed Expedition 33, DOOM: The Dark Ages, South of Midnight, and other upcoming goodies Xbox fans do have to look forward to in the near term. Definitely check it out.
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