Fable Legends Preview - E3 2014

In Fable Legends, we're returning to the saccharinely picturesque world of Albion once again, but this time as a dungeon crawler that combines classical Fable gameplay with co-op and RTS elements built on the Unreal 4 engine. You and up to four of your friends (or AI if you're running short in the friend department) can embark on an adventure through the magical and storied world, or, if you want to explore your darker side, you can play as the villain. There's not much in the way of villager interactions, buying houses, alignment morphing, and other Fable RPG staples, but you can customize your hero to give him/her a unique look.

Each Legends' adventure begins at the town hub, where you can learn more about your quest and what's at stake in the story. Speaking of story, it's fairly simple. Legends is set 400 years before the events of the first game, before the Heroes' Guild. You and your band of heroes are after an ancient artifact called "the moon on the stick," a hallowed... thing children used to make wishes to.

During our hands-on experience, we were able to play as both the villain and one of the several hero classes available. As a villain, your role in the game is more of an omnipotent mastermind, pulling the strings of your puppet minion classes to do your bidding and combat the heroes, viewed from an RTS-like camera perspective. You have a slight time advantage at the beginning of each stage. These stages act like quick-fire gauntlets (around 25mins for several stages) and it's your job to eliminate the heroes before they reach the end. On the hero side, this brief hiatus at the beginning of the stages allow you to interact with NPCs to drain them of story dialogue, loot chests for gold to spend in town or find much needed health potions.

There are a number of tricks at your godly fingertips to help you win as the evil overlord. Firstly, there are mines, which behave how you'd think. You can pick these up and place them in advantageous positions, such as the crest of stairs or behind spiked gates that you can control. Leaving them out in the open throws away your advantage, as they can be easily seen and destroyed by the heroes. The gate itself is also an effective form of offense and defense. You can thrust the gates upward as heroes pass over them, or keep them up to box heroes in, around gathering enemies or while you launch a barrage of heavy artillery.

Speaking of heavy artillery - these come from your archer class of minions, which are your ranged units. You can place them on stepped land or behind gates to pick off heroes safely, as they're vulnerable to melee attacks. Mastering their heavy artillery special attack is a real key to victory. You can bait heroes into range with fallen comrades, or strike when they're all clustered together. Your melee units require a little less finesse, as they're basically fodder to distract, though have a decent enough power attack.

Another good technique is that while the heroes are distracted with melee units, is to utilize your Puck unit. Puck is a stealthy monster that can turn invisible and attack busy heroes, and he's best used to sneak up on ranged or healing heroes.

The final unit at our malevolent fingertips was perhaps the most powerful: the ogre. A huge damage dealer, the ogre can club heroes out of the way or use his special "farting" attack to create a cloud of poisonous miasma that chips away at health. However, he's vulnerable to attack, and when a hero breaks the armour clasp at his back, he falls pretty quickly.

Playing the villain, while somewhat difficult and hands-off, was a rewarding experience, and calls for a more sagacious player - one who can assess the land, rely on choke-points, and who's overall more tactically minded. It's not for the person who wants to get their hands dirty in direct combat.

For those that yearn for cold steel, you're best playing as a hero. We played as a ranger class, Rook, who was an archer meant for picking off enemies from afar and overall providing support to the Tanks, Healers, Assassins, Necromancers, and Mages. With a heavy explosive attack, we could mow down swathes of archers and were integral to revealing the weak point on the ogre. Rook also had a great melee attack where they could jettison an enemy into the air with a swift attack, and then riddle them with arrows or allowing the Mage to freeze them.

The other characters are what you'd expect from any class-based combat game. Tanks are your main damage dealers and points of distraction for meeker characters. They can throw up a shield which negates damage for those inside, integral for when you become swamped by melee foes. Mages can freeze enemies and make them susceptible to damage, while freezing a hero will shroud them in frost armour, having the opposite effect. The final addition to our team was the Rogue, and it's what you'd expect: a nimble, quick character with a rapier who can shift in and out of combat at will.

These special techniques, while useful, are not available to you all at once. They act like the stages, in that they're gated rewards you receive after each round. We were promised loads more techniques and loot available when the game ships, but the ones we had to use proved invaluable.

Fable Legends provided a fun and engaging experience and there's a definite contrast in play styles that, dependent on what genre you call home, will take a little bit of getting used to. It has something for both the fans of classic Fable and action-adventure enthusiasts, as well as those that enjoy their action RTS. However, it's unsure yet whether it will be enough to satisfy the most ardent fans of the genre. For us, finding enjoyment on both sides was easy, and the ability for your friends to "drop in" during a match adds another aspect; this is a game that excels in a collaborative atmosphere.

In addition to watching the screen, players can also utilize SmartGlass to track game progress, receive information on Heroes, quests, and other content. Another cool feature is that you can use a SmartGlass enabled device to play as the villain if you're in the same room as your friends - screen watching is punishable by death, however.

We enjoyed Fable Legends, but don't get your hopes up if you're waiting for another standard Fable experience. Though Legends is set in the same world, its path is a divergent yet fun one, but it should be enough of a Fable fix to anyone with an Xbox One. You can expect to return to Albion around the later stages of 2014.