New Fable is digital-only

A second Fable game will arrive this year over Xbox Live Arcade.

As rumoured over the weekend, Fable: Heroes is a side-scrolling hack and slash adventure aimed at a broader audience than the series’ traditional adult fanbase. It was revealed at Microsoft’s Spring Showcase held in San Francisco last week.

It ties-in with the upcoming retail release of Kinect RPG, Fable: The Journey.

Fable: Heroes came out of the desire to make something different and a complement to our main triple-A Fable games,” Fable Heroes lead designer Ted Timmins told MCV.

It is aimed at everyone. It without question appeals to Fable fans, I have no doubt in my mind that anyone that has loved Fable over the years is going to enjoy playing this. But at the same time, if there is anyone out there who has never played a Fable game, or you’ve got young kids and you felt previous Fables were a too adult for them, they can play this.

You can play it with your boyfriend, girlfriend, mum, dad. They don’t have to feel they are the best in the world, they just jump in with you, whacking stuff, and celebrating at the end. But at the same time we have hard mode, where you will be punished, you will be beaten, you will be taken to an inch of your life. We have tried to cover as much as possible.”

This new Fable project is created by a new team of developers at Lionhead, who have risen up through the ranks. Timmins himself has never held a lead design role.

What we were told was to go away and make a great XBLA game,” he added.

It has never happened before at Lionhead, it is something new. And although we have had other creative days, we have never had a video game come from it. So there is a lot of pressure on us. It is my first time as a lead designer. There’s a lot of people in roles for the first time. It is great that Lionhead has been so supportive, Microsoft as well. We have done demos for Phil Spencer, who is obviously in charge of Microsoft Studios. Everyone has just been so receptive. The marketing guys have been 100 per cent behind it and are the reasons we are here today. It is great to not only make an XBLA game, but to make one that is so well loved internally.”