The cinematics for Microsoft’s upcoming Fable reboot from developer Playground may be worth paying extra attention to, as Blizzard, a studio well-known for its eye-catching cinematics, is lending a helping hand.
Xbox’s chief content officer Matt Booty dropped the news during an appearance on the Official Xbox Podcast, describing how various Microsoft-owned studios work together to make their games better. He outlined how The Coalition, experts on the Unreal Engine after working on the Gears of Wars franchise for years, have helped studios like inXile. Rare, most recently known for Sea of Thieves, is helping out Double Fine on its upcoming multiplayer pottery brawler Kiln. But one name in particular stood out.
“There are other examples,” Booty said. “We’ve got the Blizzard cinematics team helping out on Fable.”
Blizzard’s reputation for cinematics is, quite frankly, legendary, so much so that fans frequently ask why the developer’s cinematics team isn’t making animated films based on iconic Blizzard properties like Warcraft or Overwatch. On YouTube alone, the view counts for Blizzard cinematics combined number in the hundreds of millions of views. Whether it’s StarCraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft, or Overwatch, fans have come to expect top-notch quality cinematics to accompany Blizzard’s games.
That’s exciting news for Fable. Playground, whose previous games include the Forza Horizon franchise (including this year’s also upcoming Forza Horizon 6), isn’t exactly known for cinematic storytelling. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense for another studio to offer a helping hand.
Though Booty didn’t dive into more detail regarding Blizzard’s involvement, the fact that Blizzard is lending its expertise on Fable’s cinematics is good news for the long-in-development reboot. He did, however, make clear that help between studios isn’t Microsoft coming down from on top and trying to change each studio’s culture. Instead, he said a big part of his job is providing connections and the structure so that internal Microsoft teams can communicate and share things back and forth.
In addition to discussing how Microsoft studios collaborate, Booty also shared more details about Xbox’s next console, codenamed Project Helix. He said the next-gen console will benefit from Microsoft’s software and hardware divisions working together, an area where Xbox “really shines and where we stand apart and what shows off what’s unique about us.”
Fable is slated to release this fall and will also launch on PlayStation 5, with Microsoft announcing the release window earlier this year during an Xbox Developer Direct that gave fans their best look at the RPG yet. However, recent reports have indicated Fable could be pushed into 2027 to avoid the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, something more than a few publishers are wary of getting in the way of. Though it could be nothing, a change from one of Fable’s social media accounts has only lead to more speculation.
