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The developers of the new Fable could have automatically created all of the game's NPCs using a special randomization tool, but ultimately abandoned the idea, Game Director Ralph Fulton said in an interview with GamesRadar+.
"We originally had a tool that would randomize it, and just 'roll' an NPC, and that would have been a massive labour-saving device," Fulton explained.
According to him, this approach would indeed have saved the developers a great deal of time, but characters created this way often did not make much sense. A butcher, for example, could turn out to be vegan, while a hairdresser might have a hairstyle that did not suit their profession. As a result, Playground Games decided to manually choose the appearance, personality and other characteristics of every NPC.
"We individually picked everything about every NPC to make it into an NPC that you could read, that made sense top to bottom," Fulton said.
Fable's "Living Population" includes around a thousand characters — residents, shop owners, criminals and other NPCs with different personalities and preferences.
Last week, Gamescom 2026 featured 18 minutes of gameplay, both with and without developer commentary. The footage shows a story quest set in Bowerstone. The heroine arrives in the city after an incident in her home village of Briar Hill, meets Humphry, the head of the Heroes' Guild, and tries to help him out of debt, including by fighting local bandits.
Journalists were also able to play another demo focused on the combat system. In a different quest, the Hero and Humphry descend into a mine and fight Hollow Folk and ghosts.
Fable will be released on February 23, 2027, although players who purchase the Premium Edition or Collector's Edition will be able to start five days earlier, on February 18.
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