GDC: First Fable 2 video - secrets revealed

March 9th, 2007, 16:54 Posted By: wraggster

In a San Francisco hotel room yesterday, Lionhead's ever-talkative top man Peter Molyneux finally removed the veil from his Fable 2 sequel, revealing its new "unexpected" gameplay feature.

But as it turned out the big surprise wasn't that new after all. As CVG reported back in 2005, each player will have their own dog in Fable 2, which is really just Molyneux's way of trying to get players to feel "genuine love" in the action RPG.

"If I could get you to feel genuine love," he said, "That would be an innovation, that would be drama.You would walk away from that game feeling different, it would stay with you like a great movie or a great book."

The dog is but one of three innovations in Fable 2, Molyneux says, but the other pair are under tight leash for now.

The dog itself looks very impressive on screen, with super-smooth animation and no clumsy AI to speak of. "The dog is all based on simulation", Molyneux points out. As reported earlier, your dog in Fable 2 also mimics your appearance, adopting a fluffy sheepdog guise if you're good or morphing into a rock-hard attack dog if you're bad.

But your mutt also provides less-obvious benefits; he runs ahead just like a real dog, helping guide you through the forest without the use or clutter of a mini map. Molyneux is visually thrilled to get rid of the mini map, which he says has taken away from real exploration of his worlds.

Your four-legged companion also has a place in combat but with no instruction buttons to speak of a new system of attack orders has been created. In Fable 2, your dog picks out the your biggest threat automatically; if you unsheathe your sword he'll go for the enemey with the gun, if you unsheathe your gun, he'll go for the guy with the sword.

Molyneux also spoke briefly on his plans for family in the sequel; apparently you can chose to have either protected or unprotected nookie with your missus, with a chance of having a kid if you choose the latter. As Mr. M points out, this will be the first game to let you play as a pregnant women who slays dragons. Ahem.

The dog stuff seemed to work very well, and you can see it in action for yourself in the first video
below. Oh and yes - we left the tripod at home.

Video Here

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