14 DAY TRIAL // Peter Molyneux, the creator of the Fable franchise, has talked about the next installment, Fable: The Journey, and how it won't feature any sort of melee combat, as players can't receive proper feedback because they will play the game using just the Kinect, and not a standard controller.
Past Fable games have seen their combat range through all sorts of options, with players choosing to either use fists, clubs, weapons or magic to dispose of their enemies.
In Fable: The Journey, as we saw during Microsoft's presentation at E3 2011, players will only be able to use magic against enemies, with Molyneux confirming to the Official Xbox Magazine that because the game is controlled with the Kinect sensor on the Xbox 360, other combat options can't be reproduced in a satisfying way.
Basically, because the game uses the Xbox 360's Kinect sensor to detect the gestures and movements of the player, eliminating the need for a standard controller, proper feedback for melee or weapon combat can't be reproduced.
"We could have done melee weapons, but the one thing I hate about melee weapons, and guns as well, is that the human brain is encoded to expect recoil from those things," Molyneux said.
"Whenever I swing a sword and I hit something on screen, the visuals and the sound isn't enough. We could have done what Zelda did well on Twilight Princess, where it doesn't really matter what you do, what happens on-screen is the best thing. But I wanted people to feel powerful, to feel power, and that's all about you. The thing about magic is there's nothing encoded in your mind about how it should feel. So no guns, and no swords."
Molyneux previously highlighted the fact that even if the E3 2011 demo for Fable: The Journey made it seem like it was an on-rails first person magic simulator, the actual game will let players explore the game's levels at will, while casting all sorts of attacks by making specific gestures that are detected by the Kinect.