VGC: Who’s working on the Fable reboot? Lets look at the core devs

Theorry · Jul 28, 2020

Thought it was a good article for a quick overlook. If you follow PG closely you kinda know. But many offcourse wont.
There was also some confusion in other threads about the 'the only made racing games so far" wich isnt that weird also. But when you usually spin off into a new genre you hire the expertise you need.

In the end. PG has two teams in different buildings in Leamington Spa. One Forza team and one RPG (now known as Fable) team. So no worry. FH is being worked on also. But some veterans on that team moved to Fable tho. And Forza team hired alot of young and new talent wich alot came straight out of school also.

Will Kennedy, a level designer who worked on Grand Theft Auto V and its Online component, is the chief designer of Fable.

Kennedy is joined on the design team by Juan Fernández de Simón, a lead designer for Ninja Theory's Hellblade, and Hunter Wright, who was the lead quest designer for the Borderlands games.

As previously revealed, most of the Batman: Arkham Knight scriptwriting team are working on the new Fable. Senior scriptwriter Kim MacAskill joined the RPG team from Rocksteady in August 2019.

Meanwhile, the new team's narrative director is Martin Lancaster, the lead scriptwriter for Batman: Arkham Knight. Another of Rocksteady's senior scriptwriters, Craig Owens, is now principal scriptwriter at Playground.

In the art department, a pair of Ubisoft veterans helm character and environment art: Adam Olsson was lead environment artist for The Division 2, while Tom Isaksen was a senior character artist for the Ghost Recon series.

Analysis: Who’s working on Fable 4? | VGC

Playground Games will officially reboot the RPG series, with AAA veterans behind the scenes…

www.videogameschronicle.com

edit

Windu · Jul 28, 2020

lol.

Would have been kinda a neat surprise if it was actually unknown but oh well, fun little teaser anyway.

Excited to see what kind of game they come up with.

Indy in the Fridge · Jul 28, 2020

For all its faults, The Division 2 does have very strong world and environmental design. So that is a heck of a pick up for Playground.

LewieP · Jul 28, 2020

I wonder if there are any former Lionhead staff on the team.

Dance Inferno · Jul 28, 2020

Oh snap I loved Arkham Knight. Pretty excited for that scriptwriting team to be working on Fable.

Borderlands' quest design though... I dunno. And I say that as a big Borderlands fan.

Solace · Jul 28, 2020

LewieP said:
I wonder if there are any former Lionhead staff on the team.

Wow, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. What a shame, the original Fables were soooo good.

nelsonroyale · Jul 28, 2020

A lot of Batman AK staff...was not a fan of that games story, but hopefully this has a much more coherent plot.

No_Style · Jul 28, 2020

Do we know what engine they'll be using? Unreal Engine?

speedomodel · Jul 28, 2020

LewieP said:
I wonder if there are any former Lionhead staff on the team.

There are several, if I remember correctly. Character artists, environment artists, and maybe some others. Several have been hired if memory serves.

Rover_ · Jul 28, 2020

No_Style said:
Do we know what engine they'll be using? Unreal Engine?

Turn 10 has their own engine called "Forzatech" which will prob be used as it's a very good engine.

Also, do we know how long it's in development?

pswii60 · Jul 28, 2020

Rover_ said:
Turn 10 has their own engine called "Forzatech" which will prob be used as it's a very good engine.

Also, do we know how long it's in development?

It's using UE4 based on job ads. Might be upgraded to UE5 of course.

Windu · Jul 28, 2020

Rover_ said:
Turn 10 has their own engine called "Forzatech" which will prob be used as it's a very good engine.

Also, do we know how long it's in development?

At least 2 and a half years. Was in early development back in January 2018.

Sources: Microsoft plots Fable return

Work is underway on a brand new, big-budget Fable game, Eurogamer can reveal.Fable franchise owner Microsoft has tasked…

www.eurogamer.net

Transistor · Jul 28, 2020

Let's see..... Scanning..... Hmmm...... OK, no Molyneux. We're safe.

Ser Bloodraven · Jul 28, 2020

No_Style said:
Do we know what engine they'll be using? Unreal Engine?

Unreal Engine for the RPG team. https://xboxera.com/2020/05/13/phil...ngine-5-innovations-to-life-on-xbox-series-x/

Rover_ · Jul 28, 2020

pswii60 said:
It's using UE4 based on job ads. Might be upgraded to UE5 of course.

that is the better choice, seems all MS studios are using it and can share knowledge.

Windu said:
At least 2 and a half years. Was in early development back in January 2018.

Sources: Microsoft plots Fable return

Work is underway on a brand new, big-budget Fable game, Eurogamer can reveal.Fable franchise owner Microsoft has tasked…

www.eurogamer.net

hmm nice, game must be well into production, wonder why they didn't showed any in game scene.

Deleted member 18161 · Jul 28, 2020

They have certainly got some very talented people both from their original studio and their new hires. I'm excited I just want to see gameplay. I don't care how short. Give me 30 seconds even!

M4xim1l1ano · Jul 28, 2020

So considering so many Rocksteady devs being at Playground.. MS does not need to acquire Rocksteady OR... thanks to them, the chances are higher that Rocksteady ends up at Microsoft?

No_Style · Jul 28, 2020

Ser Bloodraven said:
Unreal Engine for the RPG team. https://xboxera.com/2020/05/13/phil...ngine-5-innovations-to-life-on-xbox-series-x/

This should be good! XGS have lots of collective experience on that engine.

Cheesecakebobby · Jul 28, 2020

I'm not sure I'm on board with this trend of grabbing talent from a wide variety of sources and expecting them to excel when thrown together. I'm sure all of these devs are individually excellent in their respective fields and have contributed to great projects. But there is so much research that shows how keeping teams together is beneficial to projects. I really feel the main reason great developers end up turning out later works that are less well-received isn't because key members leave, but because key teams get split up. Once a dev has assembled a group that work well together, they should do everything they can to hold onto it and nurture it further. Hell, go all the way and promote whole teams rather than individuals. It's why I question the strategy MS in particular seems to have of headhunting individuals one by one and expecting them to produce the same level of quality as they did with an entirely different team around them.

Edit: I should say that on the plus side, in this case we can see how at least a few devs have joined along with key colleagues, such as in the case of the Rocksteady writers and Ubisoft artists.

Mr.Flufferson · Jul 28, 2020

Lephotographeur said:
So considering so many Rocksteady devs being at Playground.. MS does not need to acquire Rocksteady OR... thanks to them, the chances are higher that Rocksteady ends up at Microsoft?

The reason so many rocksteady people are at playground is probably becuase they hired someone there to be the lead narrative designer and some of his friends/colleagues followed him. Don't think it means an acquisition is incoming.

Oreiller · Jul 28, 2020

LewieP said:
I wonder if there are any former Lionhead staff on the team.

Yeah, it kinda feels like a slap in the face to see no Lionhead employee mentionned in this article (same goes for the announcement of this game a few years after its closure too tbh).

Theorry · Jul 28, 2020

LewieP said:
I wonder if there are any former Lionhead staff on the team.

There are. Not sure what position again.

DarthWalden · Jul 28, 2020

I really wonder how far along they are with this game.

Some sort of small vertical slice of gameplay or even just panning your character traveling through the open world would have done wonders to get me excited but given that a new fable was maybe the worst kept secret in gaming they could have literally just showed a splash screen with "Fable by playground games now in development" and it would have garnered the same response from me.

GovernWort · Jul 28, 2020

Dance Inferno said:
Borderlands' quest design though... I dunno. And I say that as a big Borderlands fan.

They're still hiring quest designers as well:https://www.playground-games.com/careers/o6hU9fwa/

Classybro · Jul 28, 2020

Cheesecakebobby said:
I'm not sure I'm on board with this trend of grabbing talent from a wide variety of sources and expecting them to excel when thrown together. I'm sure all of these devs are individually excellent in their respective fields and have contributed to great projects. But there is so much research that shows how keeping teams together is beneficial to projects. I really feel the main reason great developers end up turning out later works that are less well-received isn't because key members leave, but because key teams get split up. Once a dev has assembled a group that work well together, they should do everything they can to hold onto it and nurture it further. Hell, go all the way and promote whole teams rather than individuals. It's why I question the strategy MS in particular seems to have of headhunting individuals one by one and expecting them to produce the same level of quality as they did with an entirely different team around them.

Edit: I should say that on the plus side, in this case we can see how at least a few devs have joined along with key colleagues, such as in the case of the Rocksteady writers and Ubisoft artists.

They're building a whole new team....

M4xim1l1ano · Jul 28, 2020

Mr.Flufferson said:
The reason so many rocksteady people are at playground is probably becuase they hired someone there to be the lead narrative designer and some of his friends/colleagues followed him. Don't think it means an acquisition is incoming.

Of course that on the basis of this alone, does not constitute a "definite" acquisition of RockSteady, obviously!

It does not hurt the idea either..
(but in the end it will not be a basis if acquiring or not)

Bane · Jul 28, 2020

Cheesecakebobby said:
t's why I question the strategy MS in particular seems to have of headhunting individuals one by one and expecting them to produce the same level of quality as they did with an entirely different team around them.

Is there any evidence of MS specifically headhunting people? Or could this just be people moving to different studios after completing a game or for whatever other reason?

LewieP · Jul 28, 2020

Bane said:
Is there any evidence of MS specifically headhunting people? Or could this just be people moving to different studios after completing a game or for whatever other reason?

That would be my guess too, there are a finite number of UK studios that size, I'd not be surprised to see former Lionhead staff represented in some capacity at any major UK studio that was staffing up.

Mdot · Jul 28, 2020

Rover_ said:
that is the better choice, seems all MS studios are using it and can share knowledge.

I wish every studio at MGS was using it lol.

It's a great point though to be able to share resources and expertise between studios.

CaptainBojangles · Jul 28, 2020

I'm not big on the original Fable trilogy, so I guess that I'm glad that we'll be getting new takes on the IP. Definitely a weird collection of staff for the game

Cheesecakebobby · Jul 28, 2020

Classybro said:
They're building a whole new team....

A team can be anything from a few people working in art/ UI/ QA/ whatever all the way up to an entire studio. I'm saying whenever possible new projects, whether within an existing studio or when creating a new one, ought to be structured around previously successful partnerships. Which is why I praised the idea of hiring a bunch of writers who have worked together well in the past rather than, say, 10 writers who all worked on different, successful projects but have never worked together.

machinaea · Jul 28, 2020

Rover_ said:
hmm nice, game must be well into production, wonder why they didn't showed any in game scene.

I'd advise caution with expectations on that front. There's a big difference between building a game with an existing team/studio compared to an existing team simply moving to a new project. Hiring in the games industry is notoriously difficult, slow and expensive, which on top of there's time to be accounted for the team really gelling together that usually results in first productions taking more time and often meaning there's room for improvement for subsequent products that simply come from the team knowing each other better. So I would personally not be surprised if we're looking at something a couple of years away and something that is too early to show at the risk of it changing considerably.

That said, obviously it's all really guesswork that anyone from the outside can do. And as it's still an existing studio from some perspectives so some inroads are likely, and sometimes starting small can also help with nailing down the pre-production easier as you're not so worried about finding all the hundreds of people work in the team on a project that isn't necessarily yet ready to scale up to production.

Deleted member 6235 · Jul 28, 2020

Cheesecakebobby said:
I'm not sure I'm on board with this trend of grabbing talent from a wide variety of sources and expecting them to excel when thrown together. I'm sure all of these devs are individually excellent in their respective fields and have contributed to great projects. But there is so much research that shows how keeping teams together is beneficial to projects. I really feel the main reason great developers end up turning out later works that are less well-received isn't because key members leave, but because key teams get split up. Once a dev has assembled a group that work well together, they should do everything they can to hold onto it and nurture it further. Hell, go all the way and promote whole teams rather than individuals. It's why I question the strategy MS in particular seems to have of headhunting individuals one by one and expecting them to produce the same level of quality as they did with an entirely different team around them.

Edit: I should say that on the plus side, in this case we can see how at least a few devs have joined along with key colleagues, such as in the case of the Rocksteady writers and Ubisoft artists.

That's not MS's strategy, it's a common thing in any creative industry, especially in gaming. Playground had to assemble a new team to make this, but they also have a lot of veterans inside the studio itself.

Double Fine also has people that have been in the studio since it's inception, but also have a lot of medium term and new employees. Hell, Naughty Dog itself, thanks to their awful crunch culture has a lot of talent leaving between projects.

Anti · Jul 28, 2020

The people from Arkham Knight worked in the previous Batman games or just AK? Asking because AK was the waskest of them all by far in regards of story...

Cheesecakebobby · Jul 28, 2020

Granjinha said:
That's not MS's strategy, it's a common thing in any creative industry, especially in gaming. Playground had to assemble a new team to make this, but they also have a lot of veterans inside the studio itself.

Double Fine also has people that have been in the studio since it's inception, but also have a lot of medium term and new employees. Hell, Naughty Dog itself, thanks to their awful crunch culture has a lot of talent leaving between projects.

Interesting, and fair enough. Emphasising smaller teams, trying to find the best combinations and keeping them together is just a structure I'd like to see more of, especially in this industry.

Classybro · Jul 28, 2020

Cheesecakebobby said:
A team can be anything from a few people working in art/ UI/ QA/ whatever all the way up to an entire studio. I'm saying whenever possible new projects, whether within an existing studio or when creating a new one, ought to be structured around previously successful partnerships. Which is why I praised the idea of hiring a bunch of writers who have worked together well in the past rather than, say, 10 writers who all worked on different, successful projects but have never worked together.

Utterly ridiculous when you spin in up any business venture you are looking for experience in the field and ideally the best in the field the notion that you are going to hire wholesale groups of people instead of developing your own culture to foster new relationships is crazy the real world doesn't work like that. I get the concern though..

Cheesecakebobby · Jul 28, 2020

Classybro said:
Utterly ridiculous when you spin in up any business venture you are looking for experience in the field and ideally the best in the field the notion that you are going to hire wholesale groups of people instead of developing your own culture to foster new relationships is crazy the real world doesn't work like that. I get the concern though..

Um, I didn't invent the idea. There are loads of studies out there showing the best teams outperform the the rest of the field by a much greater margin than the best individuals outperform their peers, and in fact tech companies have already experimented with allowing applicants to apply as teams, to significant success. Perhaps there *are* perculiarities of the games industry that make this a more challenging concept to introduce but the idea is far from ridiculous.

Theorry · Jul 28, 2020

Like i said alot of the Forza team moved over also.
Looks like Fulton is now Creative director for it also.

Theorry · Jul 29, 2020

Dancrane212 · Dec 17, 2020

One more!

Negotiator117 · Dec 17, 2020

Dancrane212 said:
One more!

Lead writer, I imagine there is a story already in place? As she said she liked where this is headed. Otherwise how long would this game be from release?

Theorry · Dec 17, 2020

Dancrane212 said:
One more!

Thats promising. Sure it needs to have that special humor but i hope it has a more "adult" tone also.
She worked on control and dishonored btw

Audere Est Facere · Dec 17, 2020

So she worked on Control, Dishonored and Play The Mansion i'm sold. Was death of the outsider good? Still haven't gotten around to it.

Theorry · Dec 17, 2020

Negotiator117 said:
Lead writer, I imagine there is a story already in place? As she said she liked where this is headed. Otherwise how long would this game be from release?

They have more lead writers. Then you have narrative director and scriptwriter wich were already there. :)

Negotiator117 · Dec 17, 2020

Theorry said:
They have more lead writers. Then you have narrative director and scriptwriter wich were already there. :)

Oh I had no idea, so she'll be adding to an already rich story, very exciting.

Deleted member 22750 · Dec 17, 2020

I can't wait to see what they build

there is so much potential with fable

0h-so-Cold · Dec 17, 2020

This feels like it's going to be awesome!

Theorry · Dec 17, 2020

Negotiator117 said:
Oh I had no idea, so she'll be adding to an already rich story, very exciting.

In terms of Fable she probably will take the overall idea of the story and writes them into quests etc.

Marano · Dec 17, 2020

Theorry you should post playgrounds monthly hires they announce on twitter here, or I could do that, would I need to post the tweets starting in August? It is usually around 15 people per month but I have no idea on their background.

Theorry · Dec 17, 2020

Marano said:
Theorry you should post playgrounds monthly hires they announce on twitter here, or I could do that, would I need to post the tweets starting in August? It is usually around 15 people per month but I have no idea on their background.

You can sure. Usually people post them in the Xbox studios OT. I see them come by sometimes. Not always because they hiring like crazy.

VGC: Who’s working on the Fable reboot? Lets look at the core devs

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