The E3 news conference demonstration for Fable: The Journey, the Kinect-enabled next entry in the role-playing franchise, was objectively speaking a flop. The series' creator himself says so, because The Journey left the impression this was a rail-shooter spinoff, and now everyone's in damage control.
"I made an horrendous mistake on the press demo on taking out the navigation allowing players to move," he said to Official Xbox Magazine. "I'll state on record now that Fable: The Journey is definitely not on rails."
Molyneux, in OXM's video, then points to a whiteboard that has those words written, followed by three exclamation points. Underneath that were dozens of signatures Molyneux said came from writers who had seen the game and agreed with him.
For our part, Crecente's impressions say the game is "part on-rails shooter."
It sounds like Molyneux wanted to showcase the game's action, which had the demonstrator making gesture-based magic attacks and steering a carriage. Admittedly, open-world navigation isn't really telegenic when you don't have much time, but the whole thing reeked of gimmickry and left many giving it a thumbs down.
Molyneux: Fable Kinect Demo a 'Horrendous Mistake' [Official Xbox Magazine]