Fable Developer Reveals How Xbox Shielded the Game Through a Decade of Development, While Other Studios Faced Layoffs and Closures

Playground Games, the studio behind the upcoming Fable RPG, has shed light on how the project endured a decade-long development cycle, even as layoffs and studio closures swept through other parts of Xbox.

Work on assembling the Fable team began in 2017, just a year after Microsoft shuttered Lionhead Studios, the original creator of the Fable series. Now, 10 years later, Playground Games' Fable is finally set to launch, stepping into a dramatically transformed gaming landscape.

Back when Fable's development kicked off, Xbox had yet to acquire several studios that would later join its ranks—and subsequently be let go this summer. These include Compulsion Games (We Happy Few), Double Fine (Psychonauts), Undead Labs (State of Decay), and Ninja Theory (Hellblade). At that time, The Initiative didn't exist; Xbox would later pour millions into it for a Perfect Dark reboot, only to close it after seven years without a released game. There was no hint of the $7.5 billion Bethesda acquisition (which brought id Software, MachineGames, and the now-divested Tango Gameworks), nor the $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard.

Similarly, no one could have predicted that Microsoft's buying spree would be followed by wave after wave of layoffs. In January 2024, 1,900 jobs were cut, many from the newly acquired Activision Blizzard. Later that year, at least 650 more were let go, and Redfall developer Arkane Austin was shut down. Last year, 9,000 employees left Microsoft as the company shifted focus to AI, eliminating The Initiative and cutting deep into Forza Motorsport team Turn 10 and veteran British studio Rare, which saw its long-gestating Everwild cancelled after more than a decade.

This year brought further layoffs under new Xbox boss Asha Sharma, ultimately affecting 3,200 workers, and casting doubt on the future of Marvel's Blade developer Arkane Lyon.

So how did Fable survive it all? In an interview with The Guardian, game director Ralph Fulton explained that the Fable franchise 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."

Games rarely get the luxury of a decade-long development cycle, and it does seem that Fable is one of the few core Xbox brands still central to the platform, alongside Halo, Forza, and Gears of War. Compared to those, it's perhaps no surprise that Xbox pushed forward with Fable's lengthy journey to release, even as it abandoned untested ideas like Everwild (which seemed far from launch, even after a decade in development). Additionally, while one team at Playground was busy building Fable, another was consistently delivering the hugely successful and well-received Forza Horizon games—which certainly helped keep the lights on.

Regardless, we're thrilled that Fable is nearing the end of its journey—and eager to play it when it finally launches on February 23, 2027.