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New details about combat in the Fable reboot have been revealed on Xbox Wire. Journalist and Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief Joe Skrebels played the game ahead of Gamescom 2026 and shared his impressions.
In the first-ever demo created for press and content creators, Skrebels played through the quest "Mud and Death" twice. In this quest, the Hero and the leader of the Heroes' Guild, Humphry, venture into a haunted mine filled with ghosts and skeletal Hollow Folk.
Skrebels was able to test all three traditional Hero disciplines — Strength, Skill and Will — using two different loadouts. In both playthroughs, he was armed with a two-handed Bower Hammer, a slower but more powerful melee weapon capable of hitting multiple enemies at once.
A charged attack sends the Hero spinning across the room, landing multiple strikes. Players can also dodge and parry attacks, as well as perform weapon-specific finishing moves.
The demo also included the Fireball, Lightning, Blades, Lift, Rush, Push and Befowl spells, the latter turning enemies into chickens. Some of these abilities will already be familiar to players of earlier Fable games, although they can work somewhat differently. Casting Lift once, for example, raises enemies into the air, while casting it again slams them back down to the ground. Using Befowl on an undead enemy, meanwhile, creates an undead chicken.
For ranged combat, Skrebels tried the slow but accurate Deepwood Bow — whose name references the cut Deepwood location — as well as the rapid-firing Repeater Crossbow. Ranged weapons proved particularly useful against the flying mini-boss known as the Lantern Keeper.
According to the journalist, all of these abilities can be used in tandem. They are also easily accessible on the controller and require very little effort to switch between. Combining them allows players to create a wide variety of combat styles.
Players regularly face large groups of enemies. Hollow Folk can specialize in either melee or ranged combat, while armored variants also appear. Hollow Folk can be dismembered and will continue attacking despite their injuries. Fast, flying Wraiths are weak but dangerous and can bring even more skeletal enemies into a fight. Lantern Keepers, meanwhile, are large and slow, can use fire attacks and are able to summon Wraiths.
More Fable gameplay will be shown later today at Gamescom in Cologne. Xbox has brought 25 games to the event. According to the published schedule, the show will run for four days, with broadcasts planned for the first two — August 26 and 27 at 5:00 p.m. Moscow time.
The new Fable was absent from last year's Gamescom. Some outlets speculated at the time that the game was still far from completion, but it was subsequently presented at Xbox Developer Direct in January 2026. In June, Fable was shown first at Xbox Games Showcase and then featured in another half-hour gameplay demonstration.
The major presentation on June 7 revealed several story spoilers, including the antagonist Isabel, the Hero of Wraithmarsh, a battle in Bowerstone and even the return of Jack of Blades.
The final release date — February 23, 2027 — was announced at the same time, along with the game's editions, prices, system requirements and cast. The first DLC was also announced. Fable will not receive an official Russian localization.
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