14 DAY TRIAL // Fable III received quite a few new details during Microsoft's X10 conference, and the pieces of news that keep pouring in seem to have a hard time stopping. We already know that the game plans to move out of the Teen rating aisle, by introducing a more graphic and violent combat, with blood-dripping swords and plenty of gore.
There's also a "touch" system that you can use to socialize, whether it's to hold hands and hug someone or grab them by the neck and drag them away when they refuse to cooperate. But there are other things about the game that Peter Molyneux has revealed, like the fact that we won't get a health bar anymore and that the HUD is going to be just as absent.
As such, Molyneux believes that, with these changes, the game has left the domain of the RPG and has become "more like an action adventure." And while he may want that statement to be shocking, the truth is that none of the Fables were that much of an RPG either, especially if you used Dungeons & Dragons as an RPG template.
Fable has always been more of an action-RPG, with the focus being placed on action, a lot more than on RPG, so this is only the natural evolution of the series. What would have been shocking would have been to tell us that we'd get a proper weapon system and a more elaborate skill-build possibility.
"I'm not sure I even call Fable an RPG anymore," Molyneux said at the X10 event, according to CVG. "Certainly not a 1990s RPG, for sure. In a way, you could look at it and say it's like an action adventure. There's a lot of drama, there a lot of story, there's a lot of emotion in there – but with leveling up. I love that leveling up. I'm not the sort of person that likes being given a pre-planned character and told 'this is you no matter what.'"