Playground Games’ long-awaited Fable reboot continues to staff up with the news that Andrew Walsh, whose credits include senior writer on Horizon Forbidden West and associate narrative director on Horizon Call of the Mountain, has joined the team.
Walsh - whose writing career has spanned everything form The Division 2 and Prince of Persia to UK TV shows Emmerdale and Byker Grove - revealed his new role on Twitter, writing, “So, Albion has beckoned once again. I’m delighted to announce that I’ve had the chance to join the wonderful team [at Playground] working on the new Fable!”.
As his tweet implies, this won’t be Walsh’s first dalliance with the Fable series; he was also lead writer on Fable Legends, the ill-fated free-to-play multiplayer-based spin-off, which was cancelled in 2016 when Microsoft made the decision to close developer Lionhead Studios.
Walsh’s hiring follows July’s news that award-winning writer and narrative designer Anna Megill had become narrative lead on Playground’s Fable reboot. Megill had previously served as narrative lead on Remedy Entertainment’s acclaimed Control and has credits on the likes of Dishonored: Death of the Outsider and Ubisoft’s upcoming Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
2022 has seen a steady trickle of announcements as key roles on the Fable reboot continue to be filled - March saw Playground’s Paul Haynes step into the lead level designer role, for instance - suggesting there may still be some considerable way to go until the project’s release.
Fable fans have already had a long wait for a first proper look at the game, of course; Microsoft announced the Xbox Series X/S and PC reboot back in 2020, accompanying the news with a brief teaser trailer. Unfortunately, little has been seen or heard of the project since then, but Xbox boss Phil Spencer did touch on its progress in a recent interview with Same Brain, saying he’d seen an update which “looks great”. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before there’s something more concrete for public consumption too.
