Fable III will be hitting the shelves soon, should you be excited? We are. Having played both Fable I and Fable II one can’t help but wonder what the next instalment has in store.

Fable is essentially a cross breed of action and role-playing game styles which sees you journey through the life of your character from a young boy/girl through to a hero/evil tyrant. The First Fable game was not perfect, far from it in fact. What the game did do however, is open up a new concept in gaming. Player decision making and the effect on the world of Albion is what ultimately made this game stand apart from the rest. This is not a new concept, having been used in some fantasy adventure books (If you decide to attack the Ogre go to page 115, if you decide to run away turn to page 82…) and quite a few games such as Black & White. Fable managed to take this concept and make it really cool, for example changing the way your player looks in the game depending on how much good or evil you commit. However Fable I only hinted at the concept and the game was full of “if only they had done this” moments.

Fable II managed to take the original concept and polish it, creating a richer world with great characters and inject a healthy dose of emotion and storytelling into the game. What resulted was a much more playable game that really did live up to some of the famous molyneux hype.

So enter Fable III, the next generation of this award winning game. So what is new in Fable III? Five decades have passed since Fable II and Albion has transformed from the sleepy rural town that it was, into an industrial powerhouse. The kingdom is wrought with peril and you have the opportunity to fight alongside your people, ascending to the seat of power, becoming the king of Albion. The power is all there for the taking, “With great power comes great…” – whatever, it didn’t work out for Spiderman. I recommend you do whatever you want. If you like making peasants squirm and flaunting your power and riches, then good for you. However it will come at a price, as Fable III is touted to include an emotional rollercoaster of love, loss and sacrifice.

As ruler of Albion you will also be tasked with dealing with how society works on a day-to-day basis, such as how to handle crime, poverty, taxation and even going to war. Similar to the way your looks changed based on your actions during previous Fable games, Fable III now introduces location-morphing. If you tax a region heavily, the people will become visibly poorer, their buildings will start to fall into disrepair and you will encounter hostility from the local peasants when you pass through the area.

One of the most striking changes in Fable III is the menu system, or lack thereof. The game lacks any resemblance of a traditional menu, instead relying solely on the game universe from the moment you hit the start button. This builds on the concept in Fable II of having your dog work as your mini map, providing guidance to goals and treasure. Changing clothes now requires you to use a dressing room that features all of your wardrobe possibilities, using magic requires that your character puts on specific gauntlets instead of changing them through the HUD, and shops contain their inventories on the shelves instead of in purchase screens.

Sounds like Fable III will have the same objectives of Fable II, take what works and improve it, adding bits and bytes of innovation here and there. As I said, we can’t wait to test it!

A random bit of Fable trivia for you, UK presenter Jonathon Ross will be one of the voice over artists in Fable III.

Check out the Trailer here:

Are you looking forward to the release of Fable III?