Fable III Was Affected by Short Development Process, Creator Says

Lionhead Creative Hirector and "father" of the Fable franchise, Peter Molyneux, has admitted that the last iteration in the role-playing series, Fable III, had some issues, largely stemming from the short and complicated development process.

Microsoft's Fable franchise has had its ups and downs, but the quirky role-playing game series created by Peter Molyneux and his team at Lionhead has a loyal following.

The patience of fans was severely tested with last year's Fable III, which was filled with bugs and glitches, causing many fans to demand refunds. These problems were eventually solved through subsequent patches, but it still left a bitter taste in the mouth of many fans.

Now, Molyneux, after presenting Fable: The Journey at this month's E3 2011 conference, has talked with GamaSutra about the previous game and stated that the short and complicated development process took its toll on the title.

"The process, the way that we designed, and the way that we crafted -- meant that the game came together very late. That is one of the things that we're changing; that is just such an old school way of working," which translated into "so little time to balance and refine" after the title was completed from a content standpoint.

For the next game, Molyneux highlights that the development process has changed, and the team at Lionhead knows just what to do and how to thoroughly test out its creation before release.

"It's because of those things that, now, when we approach development, it's very different, because we want to know precisely how long the experience we're crafting is up front, rather than waiting to the end, so that we have a clear idea how each of these mechanics is used, how they're meted out, how they're exploited, and how they're really used to amplify the whole drama of what that is. So we've got a very, very different process of designing now," he said.

Fable: The Journey is definitely a new type of experience for the series, as it will use Kinect to allow players to cast magic spells and fight with enemies. The title is scheduled to arrive next year for the Xbox 360 console.