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Building a business, getting married to villagers, and breaking the law are just the tip of the iceberg of what you'll be doing in Fable, as seen in this 30-minute gameplay deep dive video
Two days after Fable's darkest trailer yet at the June 2026 Xbox Games Showcase, Playground Games has decided to release a 30-minute gameplay showcase video of its highly anticipated action-RPG.
This video gives players their first proper taste of Fable's gameplay, specifically its life-simulation elements like building relationships with every NPC, a Reputation system that changes how people react to you, buying properties, and much more.
The trailer starts with a look at the various ways the player can interact with NPCs in the game. Depending on how NPCs feel about you and your reputation, they can either be friendly or hostile towards you.
For example, if you've a stranger in a town who hasn't made a name for themselves, people will treat you with indifference if you try to ask them for favors, information, or follow you around.
Pay a beggar some coin, and they may end up liking you, which can be useful down the road.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
This is where Fable's Reputation system comes in. By performing actions of renown like giving money to beggars, buying pubs to start a business, and saving the lives of talking pigs (don't ask), people will start seeing you as a merciful, shrewd, rich entrepreneur and be more friendly towards you.
However, not everyone likes a rich guy. For example, a humble merchant may start price-hiking their goods when you try to buy clothes from them because of the shrewd, rich, and entrepreneurial reputations you gained.
Get on a merchant's bad side, and they may rip you off.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
The trailer also shows that Fable allows the player to romance NPCs, move into any house you own together, marry them, have children with them, and even break up with them.
In contrast to being an upstanding citizen, you have the choice to be a menace to society by randomly using your weapon in public or randomly attacking NPCs. If you do that, the local militia will come to beat you, and that's when we get a glimpse at Fable's combat system, which is the final exhibit of this deep dive video.
If you break the law, you will be branded a Criminal in Fable.
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
In Fable, you can unleash a flurry of melee attacks while mixing in magic to decimate foes. You can turn enemies into chickens and then roast them into Sunday dinners with fireballs, lift enemies in the air with mini-tornadoes, and teleport behind enemies to cut them down.
Fighting with the law will put a bounty on your head, causing enemies to chase after you if you return to a town that hates you. You can pay the fine to get rid of the bounty, but that won't change the people's negative opinions towards your new reputation as Killer and Criminal.
You can change the people's minds about you by performing good deeds as an act of redemption or paying a town's crier to change your Reputation status in a town.
However, this will cost you a megaton of gold, which you can earn by completing quests, maintaining your businesses, renting out your homes, or taking up part-time jobs like blacksmithing, just to name a few methods.
Windows Central's Take
I'm not going to lie, I wasn't interested in the Fable reboot at first due to a lack of proper gameplay deep dives, and, speaking as someone who played the original game back in the early 2000s on the OG Xbox, the previous cinematic trailers didn't really feel like Fable to me.
However, this gameplay deep dive combined with the June 2026 Xbox Games Showcase trailer, which showed the return of Jack of Blades (the main villain from the original Fable), has changed my mind.
The vibrant, colorful art style with a tongue-in-cheek take on fantasy tropes, buying houses, dating random NPCs that can lead to marriages, moral choices, and getting in trouble with the law - these were all in the original Fable.
Welcome back, Jack of Blades. (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)
Even from what little we've seen of the combat system in this deep dive feels like the original Fable. Seeing the teleport attack (originally known as the Assassin Rush) chop helpless guards while green experience orbs pop out of them upon death just gave me waves of nostalgia.
However, the reboot version is taking these elements and building upon them in new and exciting ways that weren't possible back then due to limited technology.
So, Playground Games, I would like to apologise for doubting you up to this point because you now have my undivided attention and I can't wait to see more.
Fable is scheduled to launch on February 23, 2027, for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass (Day One), Xbox on PC, PlayStation 5, and Steam.
Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.
Posted Thursday 11 June 2026 at 7:35 am AEST (my time).
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