THE ALBION CALL: LIONHEAD ANNOUNCE FABLE III, EPISODIC FABLE II RE-RELEASE

After a week’s worth of opaque teasing on the nature of revolutionaries, Lionhead have officially announced Fable III at the ongoing GamesCom convention, a game it says will put the player in the role of a revolutionary leader taking “very different paths to power, bringing about prosperity and poverty, peace and sometimes anarchy to their people”, due for release in late 2010.

Lionhead says the game will begin “five decades after the events of the last chapter, and you play as the child of your hero from Fable II. As you rule your kingdom as king or queen, you will be called upon to make choices and sacrifices that will test your morality and can affect your entire kingdom. Themes of heroism, leadership and consequence are taken to a grand scale as you fight to unite a divided people.”

In the meantime, and to ensure that there are enough child heroes populating the world by then, the studio has also announced the re-release of Fable II as an episodic downloadable series, bolstered by the Xbox 360’s new full-game digital download channel, Games on Demand.

The launch will begin September 29th, with the first episode being dangled for free, where players can complete the early-childhood section of the game, then choose to either purchase and download the next of five separate installments, or get the entire game at once. The episodes will also be compatible with players deciding to later purchase the game at retail, and with the previously released add-on content.