If we wanted to, we could litter this whole list with sports games. But we won’t do that to you, because these things hardly count as “real” games. Instead, they’re more so DLC for their previous version with few splashes of polish added in for good measure. Oh and that’s not even mentioning their real purpose which is to be gambling machines cleverly devised to eat your credit c
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 barely counts as an open-world game. Though players are technically free to explore a portion of New York City as the wall-crawler, missions are all linear and repetitive, and the whole thing wraps up somewhere after the six-hour mark, and that’s taking into account some seriously boring padded sequences and the atrocious Peter Parker investigation segme
Next, rolling back the timeframe of a next-gen Fable lets it sit nicely in that medieval fantasy genre like Breath of the Wild . The first Fable was a fantasy jaunt with swords, bows and arrows, magic, medieval towns, and more standard medieval fare. Fable 2 and 3 progressed things forward and introduced industrial elements into its world as well as guns. There are rumors that this next-gen Fable would roll things back to that standard fantasy world, including removing guns from the ga
Alongside games like Knights of the Old Republic , which featured its own morality system with a light side and dark side meter, black-and-white moral systems were fairly common in a game, adding an additional layer of depth to individual characters. It was an early blueprint for what was to come, providing ways for players to impact a game’s narrative, at least to a degree, with decision making, but not quite having the effect on entire worlds like fans see in more modern ga
Playable on: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Taking place in Philadelphia following a North Korean invasion, Homefront: The Revolution tasks players with inciting a rebellion and taking the city’s streets back from the invaders. Though it sounds exciting enough on paper, this 2016 open-world FPS was seriously hindered by technical issues. What’s more, the gameplay was stilted and repetitive, and gamers were quick to move
Whenever Fable 4 is planning to hit shelves, Xbox needs to highlight that it’s coming out the gate strong and delivering what the fans want. It needs to show it has the system selling names, the exclusives, and the groundbreaking ideas to hang alongside the likes of Sony and stake itself a bigger claim in the generation to come. Microsoft has already shown that the Series X has groundbreaking technology and its marketing thus far has been wonderfully open and honest. All it needs now is a killer game that shows off exactly what the console can do, and Fable 4 seems to be exactly t
It does present a new host of challenges for the game. Fable ‘s abilities have been dependant on a character’s alignment since the beginning, with evil characters getting bonuses to certain abilities and vice versa. The morality system is a defining element of the franchise, and arguably what players associate with it the most. Fundamentally changing it is going to be a difficult task, and one that not all players are going to l
Xbox has shown that a freedom-driven, open-world experience can be accomplished with its first-party game Sea of Thieves from developer Rare (another UK-based studio like Playground Games, by the way). While Sea of Thieves had its own ups and downs, Rare successfully reinvented the game. Again, not that a next-gen Fable should copy Sea of Thieves , but hopefully learnings (and maybe even technology) from that adventure game collectibles could be shared between Xbox’s studios to influence Fable in a way that gives players that sense of freedom and helps the game achieve the grand RPG path that was originally envisioned with Project
There are multiple reasons why a next-gen Fable should be a reboot instead of a continuation from Fable 3 . First off, a non-numbered Fable is much more welcoming than a numbered entry that continues a series that had its last official entry release ten years ago. Players can jump in without having the question about whether they should have played earlier entries to be able to even understand this new g
One of the joys of playing Breath of the Wild is its sense of freedom. Like any open-world game, there are always limitations, but the magic comes when a developer can give a sense of freedom while successfully hiding the limits of its virtual world. Breath of the Wild excels at this. Fable should not copy Breath of the Wild’s open world as Fable has its own beloved gameplay and style, but a next-gen Fable would do well to make the revolutionary step forward that made Breath of the Wild so endearing and engaging for the Legend of Zelda franch
That being said, it’s a necessary change for a modern title. Ideally, there will be a balance between the old system and the creation of the new one, though, with no game confirmed so far, it’s difficult to say what exactly that will look like. Fans may get a decent idea if the game is announced at Xbox’s July event, though they’ll just have to wait and find