Exclusive: New Fable 2 details revealed! [OXM] [Pic]

My usually reliable Photoshop bullshit detector isn't being very helpful, but those who suspect that a Master Chief lookalike in Fable II is simply pixel alchemy are welcome to eyeball a larger version linked below.

Master Chief Rockin’ [Loinhead via Lionhead Forums]

Best of all, while the Fable II Pub Games will be available for purchase at 800 MS points, preordering the game from participating retailers gets you the mini-games for free, my personal favorite price.

Build Your Fable II Gold with Pub Games [Xbox.com - Thanks Peter!]

Others in the NeoGAF forums point out that things still look a bit rough for an October release, though of course we're only seeing what Lionhead wants us to see. I've been known to take notes while on phone calls only to discover later that what I've written down had exactly no bearing on anything whatsoever. Perhaps he just loves the word October. Certainly is a very earthy word.

Lionhead Video Diary 6 (Fable II) [NeoGaf Forums - Thanks Fritz!]

Eurogamer summed up some more of the recent hints thusly:

The first examples of the faces you'll come across in Fable 2 are Arfur, a murderous and vicious thief who sounds like the infamous Bill Sykes; Barnum, an unlucky inventor likely to be laughed off of Dragon's Den time and time again; and Giles, a tough-as-old-boots farmer who used to be a soldier and now has problems with a violent gang.

Nobody's saying just how many characters there will be in the world, but Carter said some 50 hours of voice acting has been recorded. And though Lionhead is aiming for an open-ended world, you won't be able to kill anyone where doing so will remove huge chunks of the story - wouldn't want to waste all that hard work, right?

Fable 2: Meet the Populous [IGN via Eurogamer]

Awwww. Fable II's hero sure was a cute little kid, wasn't he? The very definition of adorable little scamp. Soon he'll grow older, wiser, and get himself a faithful canine companion, but for now he's just a little guy just like the rest of us were, filled with the potential for great good and/or evil.

I'm really digging the art direction for Lionhead's latest. It reminds me of The Dark Crystal a little bit, which is pretty much the set point from which I judge all fantasy works that may or may not contain muppets. I just hope that once the game is actually released I will be able to finally look at something Fable related without hearing the words "Chicken Chaser" in my head over and over again.

All you have to do is send in a picture of yourself in suitable artistic pose. Think old master, royal portraits or even the Mona Lisa! Dress up as an old or modern hero, go out to the countryside and find yourself a deer to shoot (not recommended) or just strike a suiting pose in front of an open fire. The thing that would make it even better is if you were to act out an expression from the original Fable.

I think that deep down inside, what Lionhead is asking here, is for you to send them naked pictures. I could be misinterpreting this of course, but it seems like that to me. You might wanna hurry, seeing as the deadline is June 4th. Luckily I have an entire folder of suitable shots aavailable for instant distribution.

ART MODELS WANTED [The Lionhead Times via Major Nelson]

So what is it? In Molyneux's own words, "I think it's such a significant scientific achievement that it will be on the cover of Wired." Normally hallowed ground for scientific advancements on par with baking an inedible cake in the shape of a Wii, Molyneux thinks that a decade's worth of work on AI, simulation and character interaction is worthy of a cover treatment.

Video game AI advances have already made the cover of Wired—Munch's Oddysee graced the mag's cover in 2002—but Molyneux's photogenic nature and capacity for extensive quoting will surely make for a much interesting return to newsstand prominence.

Peter Molyneux: My Next Game a 'Significant Scientific Achievement' [Wired] [Image Credit]

Big-ish, eh? We know it's not the only big-ish thing happening next week, as we expect a respectable number of pre-E3 announcements throughout the week, but we have to wonder what Fable 2 secrets await us. Perhaps we'll see that ballyhooed acorn or learn more about in-game pregnancy! Who wants to make a guess? There's a no-prize in it for you!

Lost My Teeth! [Fable 2 Development]

SEE?! He does have eyeballs. Told ya so!
Fable 2 Diary [GameTrailers via Fanboy Killswitch Thanks, DJ T!]

I can tell you definitively that there is absolutely an acorn and it does absolutely grow into a tree. And it is actually part of the story now. We decided we got into so much trouble over acorns and trees that we are going to make it part of the main thread of the story in "Fable 2".

...And then [Dimitri] moved from [an] experiment to a moment in time that happened six months ago when a discovery was made, and this discovery has been so exciting that it has lead to Lionhead focussing on it and sculpting a game around that. I think that discovery is so significant... This discovery has lead us to start a game and that game will be on the front cover of Nature magazines and Science magazines.

Five days ago, in an unexpected terrorist attack, the entire shipment of liquid-soap for Europe was hijacked - hundreds of lorries diverted towards Paris and their contents spilled over French capital. The scenes were horrifying - millions of Frenchmen who hadn't washed in decades screaming as they were forcibly cleansed.

Given the choice, I'd obviously choose a hard drive every day of the week...But the balance to that is you're supporting a system which is an awful lot cheaper.

What I'm trying to address with Fable 2 is say 'Look, anybody can play this game.' That's what I really want. So supporting the cheaper price is really important.

The other feature is a little more unique. A few weeks prior to the release of Fable 2, Lionhead will put out an XBLA title that contains a few gambling minigames. Any and all money you earn in those, you can export into Fable 2 when you get the final game. Sure, it's a neat gimmick, but it's also teaching you a lesson: you don't get money during quests in Fable 2. Because Skeletons in caves don't carry wallets. The only way you can earn money in the game is to either work for it, or win it by gambling.

Add those to the dog and the fact I really dug the first Fable and yes, Peter, despite my best attempts at ignoring your promises, I'm excited for this game.

In the six years since Black & White [was released] they have been working improving the great things that underpinned that game, and now they are getting pretty close to something that is very significant. It's a very big thing. A new franchise and as close to something revolutionary as I have ever seen. And we're close to announcing it... If you think back to the one thing about Black & White that was most fascinating, you'd have to say it was that creature that learned behavior and seemed, for a certain glimpse, to be alive. Imagine if you could take that and multiply it by a billion...

The currently unnamed achievements run the gamut from story-driven milestones to those won in combat to a handful of "secret" gamerscore boosters. Even though West dogs Eternal Sonata for being littered with "secret" achievements and talks up statistics that say such things discourage games sales, if they had their druthers, there'd be more.

Read on for West's analysis of how others handled it, such as Mistwalker's Blue Dragon achievements ("Terrible").

Achievements, What Achievements? [Fable Dev Blog - thanks, Amandeep!]

I've had a pet project I've been working on for years, three of them if my memory is right. It started as a simple idea: You can judge a lot from a person's desk. I bet you could judge just as much from their home entertainment system. So I decided it would be fun to try and track down some pictures from the work desks and home gaming set-ups of the people who work in and cover the video game industry. Simple right? Not so much.

Turns out that many of the people are either too busy or too private to want to participate in such a project. To make matters worse, there's always fear that something sitting on someone's desk, that ends up in a photo, could actually be news worthy. Like a secret project or the next big thing. But I didn't give up and about once a year I'd harass a bunch of game developers for photos. Finally, this year, the harassment paid off.

What started as a trickle of photos turned quickly into the collection of galleries you'll find on the jump: More than 40 different photo galleries from 17 studios, seven publications, two industry movers and shakers and a couple of fun surprises.

You'll get to see the desk of such greats as Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux and Tetsuya Mizuguchi along with plenty of others. Remember you can comment both on the next page and on each individual photo if you click on them.

If I find there is interest, I will try to periodically update this gallery of galleries with more developers, journalists and industry movers and shakers. Have fun.

DEVELOPERS
2K Games

ASTRO Gaming

Buzz Monkey Software

Capcom

Eat, Sleep, Play

Electronic Arts

Firaxis Games

Flying Lab Software

Gearbox Software

Harmonix Music

Incognito Entertainment

Insomniac Games

Kojima Productions

Lionhead Studios

NanaOn-Sha

Naughty Dog

NCSoft

NetDevil

Neversoft Entertainment

Ninja Theory

Pandemic Studios

Petroglyph Games

THQ

Q Entertainment

JOURNALISTS

Blue's News

BoingBoing

EGM

The Escapist

GameLife

Joystiq

Kotaku

MTV

Slashdot Games

VE3D

VH1

INDUSTRY FOLK

MISCELLANIES
I AM 8-BIT

Penny Arcade

Whorecraft

Video Games Live

Not all of the holiday cards we receive here at Kotaku Tower come via our grumpy mailman. Some pop right up inside our email's mailbox. Take, for example, this touching card from Lionhead Studios, featuring Fable 2's boy and his dog.

Nice picture, but more interesting is the note included:

Hi Kotaku,

Season's Greetings from all at Lionhead Studios! We wish you all the very merry Christmas and the best wishes for 2008, which will be a very busy gaming year (with Fable 2 and our other game...)

Best wishes,
Lionhead Studios

Other game? I can't seem to find any clues on the card...

"Late 2008. Maybe when the leaves have a slight brownish tinge - but are still on the trees, if you see what I mean."

Fable 2 in late 2008 - Molyneux [Eurogamer]

Thus, our third instalment of 'how did their predictions turn out, ten years later' picks out Lionhead's Peter Molyneux and Demis Hassabis, from an interview originally conducted by me in 1998 for Videogamedesign.com. What did they say? Does it still make sense, almost a decade later? Time to find out...

[Thanks to Way Of The Rodent's 'Peter Molyneux Presents...' article for the very useful picture of the duo!]

Give us a vague, vague hint about your new game, "Black and White"?

Peter Molyneux: I can honestly only say that it is the most important game of my whole career, and that it is the most ambitious concept that I have ever worked on - for these reasons it is scaring the shit out of me.

(When eventually released three years later, Black & White, despite being hyped to a possibly excessive degree, was pretty darn well-received as a fun god game/virtual pet melange - and is certainly one of the best games (alongside Fable) that Lionhead produced.)

You gave the impression that Lionhead was pretty much happy with being a small team, but you're also taking out full-page ads in "Edge" magazine (in the UK) looking for staff. Are you still intending to concentrate on just the one product, and if so, how many people are you figuring you need to get it done?

Peter Molyneux: Lionhead will only work on one title at a time, and it will never get bigger that 20 people ( We are currently 8 people). As we have developed the new game, we have come to the shaky realization that it is very ambitious and far beyond anything any of us have attempted before. So we need to attract, as the ad says, 'the best of the best of the best' (that's a quote from "Men in Black".) In fact, we have received over 100 CVs so far, and I should say that only two are of the caliber that we need.

(Ah, this is a bit off, to say the least. In a GDC London 2006 talk, Molyneux and Mark Webley explored what eventually let Lionhead spiral slightly out of control - and overexpansion towards 200 people and multiple teams in the early years of this century was one of those very things.)

Hypothetically, you can make a James Bond game or an "Alien"-based game. Which do you choose, and why?

Demis Hassabis: I'd do a James Bond game, although this conjures up images of "Goldeneye". I think there is scope to do a totally different game based around secret agents. "Goldeneye" was a good game - a cross between "Quake" and "Virtual Cop" - but I think James Bond has a lot more to offer which no one has touched upon yet.

(This answer is particularly interesting since Hassabis left Lionhead to form the now defunct Elixir Studios, who created, among other things, a title called Evil Genius. Released in 2004, the PC title is "...a tongue-in-cheek take on the 1960s spy thriller genre", albeit with the player portraying the villain. Still, foreshadowing here?)

Do you think the games industry should be trying to increase its appeal to those who don't normally play games? And if so, how?

Peter Molyneux: 90% of all computer games are written by gamers for gamers, which means that our industry is very insular. But there are games that are written for a wider market - e.g. puzzle games. Admittedly, it may not be as interesting designing a mass market appeal game. We have to try to broaden the games that we develop so that they can be played by more and more people. The key to this is simplicity, without sacrificing depth. The perfect game, in my mind, is one that you can play within fifteen seconds but enjoy playing for ten minute or ten hours.

(You know, he's right - see the success of casual games, the DS, Wii, etc. Reasonably prescient, if reasonably obvious even then. Thumbs up, Mr. Molyneux!)

Interview: Peter Molyneux + Demis Hassabis [GameGeekPeeks]

Another responded the cancellation was "all based on pure speculation, a bit of gossip at the end of a podcast" and that the game was "in full swing." Who wants to be next with the outright denial?

Is Fable 2 cancelled ? [Lionhead Community]

Check out the Lionhead community blog for more information. For those unable to attend, make sure to visit the Child's Play charity web site to learn how you can make a contribution.

childsplaycharity.org [Lionhead Community]

Lionhead Video Diary - Episode Three [gametrailers]

Peter Molyneux could not attend his keynote today titled, "Life, Love and Death: Drama & Story Experience in Video Games." So instead, Staging Designer Georg Backer presented Lionhead's thesis on how games need to change.

What followed were somewhat classic Lionhead production examples—assets must change over time to tell the story (from your character, to things around you).

Backer explained that their Fable 2 dog and one-button combat system are both, hopefully, all part of games finding their unique voice, learning how they can share narrative as easily any other format. Because ultimately, Lionhead sees families talking over dinner about a movie they just saw, a book they just read and, without a beat, the game they've been playing.

Now all that is well and good, but it's their development process that's so baffling. While in search of this unique voice—something that could be a decade off they are quick to admit—Lionhead is waist-deep in Hollywood school: video editors advise better camera cuts in their combat system, and sword masters teach camera friendly movie combat.

And it's not that Lionhead partakes in interdisciplinary studies that so confounding, but that they talk about their "unique voice" and the tricks of Hollywood in a completely intermixed fashion.

The presentation was a developer's call to arms, but it was also a simultaneous cadence of retreat—instructions to regroup and learn from our Hollywood masters.

Less cynically, I think this is the message that even Lionhead has not yet said clearly and most game developers are afraid to admit:

Games, despite how often they emulate film's cliches, fall far short of the movie industry's time-tempered production methods. So games must first play a bit of catch-up before we can really begin the discussion of profound interactive narrative technique.

Lionhead Diaries [lionhead]

According to GamesIndustry's report, the unnamed event will have "a UK point of view" as opposed to a continent wide focus. With development studios Rare and Lionhead headquartered in the UK, it's possible that the event could have a much greater focus on titles that didn't appear at E3, including Banjo Threeie and Fable 2, among other unannounced games.

UK set to get own event instead of X07, says Microsoft [GamesIndustry]

Download the HD version in correct aspect ratio vision here!

You go back in time twenty minutes to do the same thing over again. That's fine if I'm playing a platformer, not so fine if you're doing an RPG game.

This isn't just an interesting development, it's an interesting subject. Although I personally haven't been looking forward to the release of Fable 2 (because it means that the one television we have will inevitably be taken over by the boyfriend who will also cease to talk to me for two solid months), but I have to say, I'm very curious to see how Lionhead deals with death in-game. Kim Phu

Molyneux hints at next big Fable 2 announcement [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Sam over at Lionhead recently posted that the development team headed up by Peter Molyneux will soon be launching a regular video diary.

The first episode should be hitting in the next few weeks and will feature an inside look at Lionhead Studios and some very early game footage for Fable 2.

They've also set up a sub-forum on the site for gamers to go in and post questions for future episodes. I've got one: Are they really going to have STDs in Fable 2? Molyneux didn't mention that during the session I was in with him at GDC and it sounds a bit too much like acorn to tree to me. Brian Crecente

Lionhead Forums [Lionhead]

It may not be much, but Lionhead Studios just posted this picture up on their Fable 2 forums with three points for gamers to "speculate" about:

This is a castle
"Own all the world's property"
Located in a city

Hmmmm, I see no mention of trees. What could this mean? The Msoft press release that pointed me to this post starts by asking me to imagine myself as the main character in a Fable where I own this castle. So that part is explained, but the rest seems very nebulous. Brian Crecente

A little something [Fable 2 Forums]

Lionhead Studios announced recently that movie-making sim and machinima creator The Movies is now available for the Mac.

The studios also have a demo up on their site for Mac users. The Mac version got a director's cut treatment, adding some new features for this latest port. Brian Crecente

The movies for Mac [Lionhead Studios]