Peter Molyneux made a big announcement at Gamescon in Cologne yesterday: one that will no doubt lead to a year of high hopes in the game community. Fable 3 is on its way to our living rooms, and should be here sometime in 2010.

I can see it now, new waves of excitement over simulations of dogs realistically looking sadly at pub windows while their masters realistically get rejected by barmaids who could realistically be riddled with STDs in a realistically-designed fantasy environment.

I'm wary of the third Fable installment. The way Molyneux hyped up the last two, only to see them both fall short, fuels my wariness. Every week or so for years our good friend Peter would dazzle gamers with tales of distant lands composed of non-linear storylines where you could rob a bank as a thief, save a princess as a knight, or get gingivitis as a barbarian. But both games fell short of his promises. Molyneux promised filet mignon the size of Mars, and gave us hamburger.

Here's what Pete had to say about his next crack at Fable: “The third child is always the problem child. The third game of any series tends to be a bit of a lull. We want people to expect the unexpected.

“Fable 3 will be new, fresh and different. I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with RPGs like Fable. The mechanics have been around since the ‘80s. I’m going to take that foundation and throw it away.”

"I want players to feel and experience what it’s like to be a ruler."

That could be fun. I have no idea what it entails, and the idea isn't really new to the fantasy genre specifically, but don't think I've played an RPG where I started off as a big kahuna and worked my way down to plebiaity.

Here's to hoping Peter's good for his word this time. There's a first time for everything.

Greg

Labels: Fable 3, Gamescom 09, Greg Mengel

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