Expect around 20 hours of main story content
by Liam Croft
RPGs are bigger than they have ever been, regularly offering over 100 hours of quests and content. The new Fable from Playground Games is doing the opposite: it’s staying in line with the length of the original trilogy to offer a more modest playtime.
Speaking to Polygon last week, associate game director Will Kennedy explained Fable has roughly 15-20 hours of main questline gameplay, and then an extra 15-20 hours of “side and open-world exploration content” on top.
The RPG does have some life simulator elements where you can marry townsfolk and buy houses, and if you were to fully immerse yourself in that side of the game, game director Craig Littler reckons you could “literally play it forever if that’s what you want to do”.
However, in terms of actual story content, it seems you’re looking at 15-20 hours to finish the main narrative, and then double that to wrap up all the optional quests.
This sort of length is very much in line with the previous three mainline Fable games. How Long to Beat has Fable 2 and Fable 3 as the longest main quests in the series, but even they are only 13 hours long according to player reports. The titles become much longer when you add in the side content, which is what Playground Games is going for in the 2027 reboot.
Fable is not a Fallout kind of experience where your playtime will reach triple digits, but that might be a good thing when it’s launching in close proximity to other big games like God of War Laufey and Persona 4 Revival in February 2027.
Does this sort of playtime for an RPG sound good to you? Let us know in the comments below.
[source polygon.com]
Liam grew up with a PlayStation controller in his hands and a love for Metal Gear Solid. Nowadays, he’s found playing the latest and greatest PS5 games as well as supporting Derby County. That last detail is his downfall.
