Xbox Delays Fable to 2026 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 25 February 2025 / 3,864 Views
The head of Xbox Game Studios Craig Duncan in the latest Official Xbox Podcast announced Fable has been delayed from 2025 to 2026.
"I just want to start with really excited about progress, really excited where Playground are," said Duncan. "We previously announced the date for Fable as 2025. We are actually going to give Fable more time and it's going to ship in 2026 now. While I know that’s not maybe the news people want to hear, what I want to assure people of is that it’s definitely worth the wait.
"I have unequivocal confidence in the Playground team. If you think about their history and legacy for Forza Horizon, the last two games critically acclaimed, award-winning, beautiful, played great. And just what they're bringing to Fable as a franchise, just think of the visuals of what you expect of Playground Games, plus amazing gameplay, British humor, Playground’s version of Albion. So inspired by what’s gone before with the franchise, but their take.
"And quite frankly, the most beautifully realized version of Albion you've ever seen. So really excited about the plans and really excited about the future and I want the community to understand that we do these things for the best of the games, and the teams, and ultimately that results in the best games, or the best game for the community."
Fable is in development for the Xbox Series X|S and PC.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
More Articles
I am happy they are taking their time instead of making the exact same mistake as they did with Fable 3 and rush the game to meet a deadline, resulting in a game that was lacking in content. (The time skip)
This one definitely stings, but it's not like Xbox was having a dry 2025 to begin with lol
Isn't Xbox launching more games in 2025 than any previous year?
Yes! NateTheHate mentioned around 10 games in 2025.
As far as confirmation releases in 2025, outside of late ports like FH5 or Indy on PS5, there’s
Avowed
South of Midnight
Doom: The Dark Ages
Towerborne
The Outer Worlds 2
Ninja Gaiden 4
New CoD
Currently rumored is THPS 3+4 and Elder Scrolls Oblivion remaster. There’s supposedly at least 2 more surprise releases this year. My personal guess would be Double Fine’s next game and Contraband by Avalanche Studios.
Smart move. Xbox is far from a dry year of games. Give it more polish and release when ready. No rush. Plenty to play while we wait.
Bummer, but will be a good thing for the game.
Disappointed in the delay... Fabel 1 and 2 are both among my favorite 360 titles
However, wow that gameplay actually looked really great!
I think Fable 1 was an original Xbox game, not 360.
I don't think it's going to bother me really, because I already expected it to be delayed again, and I know it's most definitely not going to be a game for me. Fable died to me around the time 3 released and then Lionhead being dissolved.
So you're not willing to give it a chance? From what they have shown, it looks really good.
I thought the same about AoE IV, but again, not really the same feeling I got with AoE II, because Ensemble made AoE II, not IV.
This also happened to me with the Gears 5, and the same with my partner, we both got put off the Gears franchise after 5, because it simply did not feel the same as Gears 1-3.
I'm really not into games for looks, unless it's a stylistic choice of art (not including Unreal engine hyper realistic, because I see that everywhere these days, I'm more about what Indie artists put out, since they seem to understand that not everything has to look irl).
Hearing about it's Witcher 3-like combat isn't enticing me, since I was at odds with W3's combat style to begin with. I liked Fable 2's combat, as that felt simple, yet snappy, but to me, W3's did not give me the same feeling, and if those rumours are true about MS getting some CD Project Red Staff from W3, then I'm going to expect the same feeling of contention.
Also the previous trailer really did not scream Fable to me, especially with the MC's look, and them using a comedy celeb to market the game.
Didn't they start this new fable back in 2018?.... 2026? that like 8-9 years of development.
A decent chunk of this time was building up a new studio and reworking the Forza engine to make this game. Games take a long time to make, especially the more ambitious it is these days. The new Fable is looking very good. At least visually, it's one of the best looking games I've seen.
Yes... but they've also released 2 Forza's and multiple DLCs since then
Its pretty obvious that Fable was the passion project that was always going to take its time.
F....
Why in this F... gen they keep announcing games in a different decade than the release ?
Of course, it was to be expected : We're in late february and we had no release date for a 2025 game yet.
I'll know now that when they'll announce ps6 games, i could buy them upon ps7 release...
Whats PS got to do with this? Lol
Rumour it is for the PS5 version.
where did you hear about this rumor?
Nategthehate or whoever that is apparently is half decent with rumours. I see Xbox fans do not like rumours, lol.
good enough,, i just never came across
https://www.resetera.com/threads/xbox-game-studios-update-with-craig-duncan-fable-delayed-to-2026.1118379/page-4#post-136255851
Again, just a rumour. Scroll down if anyone is interested.
thank you
It's his speculation. Not anything he heard.
It's coming. Day one.
So much port begging 😂
Some day? For sure. Day 1? Maybe, maybe not. It's still only speculation. They could be delaying to polish and space out their road map of games. They already have 3 RPGs this year aside from Fable.
Nate has been quite consistent lately with Xbox multiplat rumors. A lot of Xbox fans are now believing him when it comes to any news lately, even some Xbox users on this site. People don't seem to realize that there is no port begging going on, it's all on Xbox wanting to release on PS5. It's a sad state of copium now when others say "port begging lol". Xbox lost the console war and some people really need to accept that and move on.
Didn't he say Starfield was launching on PS years ago?
You can cherry pick old specific ones all you want, there is no point anymore. Phil Spencer already stated publicly that Starfield will be going multiplat with Destin. By the time Fable launches likely in Fall 2026, PS5 will be 95-100M install base and Series X/S will be around 37-38M and that's being generous. The board at MS want more than just Steam sales and stagnant Gamepass subs. After 6 plus years of dev time and hundreds of millions of dollars, they are going to need PS5 sales on this one. They prepared Xbox users for this over the last year, it's go time now.
Phil didn't say its coming, he said there is no red tape, meaning if they chose to, they will. That could mean tomorrow or 10 years from now or never.
I'm suprised you are waiting this long to play Starfield. I didn't know you cared about it to be honest.
Why would they delay it for a PS version? Makes zero sense. Also Nate gets 50% of his rumours right and many are just guesses.
I think it's now going to launch day one on PS5 and Switch 2 now. By 2026 the game would've cost so much money to make they don't have a choice
They always have a choice its not like Microsoft gamings division isn't profitable.
You seriously believe they can sell enough copies on Xbox and PC alone to recoup the costs of development? Look at Avowed's numbers on Steam. The PC/Xbox release strategy is not working and it's not even close to working
Fable has a pretty decent fanbase on PC and Microsoft gets a good amount of money monthly via gamepass. Besides they sell 30 million copies of COD every year.
If Sony van afford to cancel three big games which where 4 year in development and suffer the Concord incident I believe Microsoft can release some commercially less successful games.
Besides if Avowed doesn't sell on Steam with twice the installbase as PS5, why would it sell much better on PS5. This is the same argument as that Xbox could have massively improved FF sales.
I don't see how they magically need to only rely on PS5 to "recoup" it's investment, while they have Xbox/PC and GP.
No idea what kind of notion you're getting at here but it sounds rather arrogant.
Xbox/PC clearly wasn't enough for Avowed, Forza Motorsport and Hellblade so why would it be enough for Fable? No idea what notion I'm getting at? Well, let me spell it out for you, XBS consoles are a colossal failure and they need PS5 for their gaming division to hit the profit targets they need to please investors.
Xbox already breaks even with gamepass actual software sales are simply icing on the cake.
I'll just wait till it launches in 2026. Proof will be in the pudding.
I think Xbox are done with exclusives on their console, even timed exclusives.
Can you prove this?
Again, that makes zero sense, because that's you then outright saying "every platform sucks, PS5 is clearly the biggest userbase in history and thus the most profitable, other platforms need to share their games, but Sony doesn't need to".
Makes zero sense? Xbox would make more money from PS5 sales than it would it's own platform. Why is this so hard to understand?
Because you are putting Sony at the forefront of every other platform in terms of sales/rev power, and that is not how this works.
If it truly did work that way, PC wouldn't be getting anything on their end, and neither would Xbox, both platforms would just sink into utter obscurity and vanish, but that hasn't happened at all, and PC has only grown bigger since those days, and it is why both Xbox and Sony are now selling towards that platform.
The notion of "PS5 or your games flop" is just outright arrogant to suggest. We've seen Xbox selling their own games and doing well before, this is no different.
It's not about superiority it's about the truth. The truth is that the PS5 is a much more successful console Than XBSS/X and MS will sell more copies of Fable on PS5 than they would Xbox. Why would MS want to lose all those sales when XBS consoles have already failed and MS have nothing to gain by keeping it off PS5 day one
It's not even the "truth" though.
This isn't how it works, because if it was the "objective truth", Xbox/PC wouldn't continue to exist by your logic.
Fact - PS5 is more successful than XBS consoles and there is more game sales than on XBS consoles. That is an objective truth.
Mate, Xbox doesn't care about how many units Sony has sold at this point.
Are you just not fully aware that we have all moved onto the ecosystem war focus?, because that is objectively what is being focused on right now, hence why MS is releasing their games across multiple systems and ecosystems. If they weren't, they wouldn't be doing what they are right now.
But again, a game does not need to be "saved" only by Sony, and Sony gamers are not "saviours" for games. That's the point I am trying to get at here, not how many units a system sold for, I really couldn't care about that little spreadsheet, it's the notion behind what you are trying to get at that I am arguing with here.
My original comment was also about it being ported to Switch 2. So why are you only talking about Sony?
My guy, you made it about Sony, you ALWAYS make it about Sony.
Why are you only just playing this card right now, when you've run out of points to argue?. Legit asking as to why you only say this, only now.
because Sony is currently the only gaming brand that has a console powerful enough to run Xbox games. Once Switch 2 launches I will be arguing to Xbox to port all their games to PS and Switch 2
It's not the only gaming brand to run Xbox games though?.
We've seen Xbox put their games onto multiple platforms, PC, Xbox and Switch, and they've been doing just fine. Sea of Thieves is on multiple platforms even, same with Minecraft, and Minecraft has more users on mobile/PC than they do a single Sony system.
It's just odd that you make such demands, as if they will magically die without Sony, and then moving the goalpost with Nintendo.
My original post included Nintendo. There wasn't any moving of goalposts. Sony are the first Platform that doesn't have Gamepass to receive Xbox games first so that's why they were the logical target of discussion.
Xbox Series S and X sell most of their games digitally and the attachment rate is super high just like with all previous X Box consoles.
Forza Motorsports is currently on PC and series X/S only and has not been announced for anything else. As for Horizon 5 which is a totally different game it pretty much was profitable from day one and currently has over 44 million player count.
Who said they have to sell the game? If it's boosting GP numbers, that's just as important for them.
According to Natedrake that's the reason for the delay, so they can bring it day one to PS5/Pro.
That makes no buisness sense. Seriously why delay a game to launch simultaneously? To what benefits? To have less people pick up GamePass?
Honestly yes.. 8-9 years is along time to make a game.
As I previously stated, the earliest it started developing was probably 2019 so it's not going to be 8-9 years before it's going to be released. Plus, I'm pretty sure the only thing they did in 2019 was making the reveal trailer and they did not actually start serious development until 2020.
The studio as a whole is among Xbox's most profitable lmao...
They have all the good will and time they need to make a great game
With that said, I'm sure it will come to NX2 and PS5 sooner rather than later.
I'm happy to play it on GP and buy a copy for portable play lol
That's why they are releasing Forza Horizon 5 on PS, to help fund Playground and give them more time with Fable.
Ain't that a surprise,
Games been in developmental hell for decades
The game has not been in developmental hell for decades. It was first announced in 2020. As a matter of fact, the studio that develops it hasn't even been around for decades since it was founded in 2010.
My comment is over exaggerated and people thought it was true lol
