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Fable will have over 150,000 lines of dialogue, with a thousand NPCs for you to mess with

Lots to chat about.

An official screenshot from Fable, showing a man in a suit of armour pulling a surprised expression.

Playground Games

Published: Wednesday, 10 June 2026 at 4:36 pm

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We got the chance to chat with some of the developers of the new Fable game, after their latest trailer was shown at the Xbox Games Showcase.

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In a behind-closed-doors meeting, a trio of developers talked us through a hands-off demo of the game. Their main focus for this presentation was the side content, or the ‘game within the game’ as they prefer to call it, which will keep players busy pretty much forever if they choose to engage with these systems.

In the game’s ambitious open-world region of Albion, there are various different settlements for players to visit. Each town has a cast of fully-voiced characters, who you can interact with in numerous interesting ways.

Walking us through one such settlement, the developers played through a sequence of events where they saved a talking pig, bought a local pub, found a job for an unhoused person, bought a home for themselves, and, in doing so, won the affections of a nearby shopkeeper. Before long, they were going steady.

It looks like every action you take in Fable will build your reputation with the locals in that specific area. Start killing people and they’ll all think you’re a wrongun, or, alternatively, go around helping people and they’ll all think you’re an absolute legend.

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What amazed me during this demo is that, no matter what the player-character did, the non-player characters had something to say about it. All these NPCs seemed to have a line of dialogue for every possible outcome.

Compare that to some games, where your average NPC might have four lines of dialogue, and it’s clear that there’s a hell of a writing, directing and acting operation going on behind the scenes here.

Fable’s game director, Ralph Fulton, was sitting quietly in the corner until I brought this up. He was pleased that someone had noticed that a lot of work must have gone into this side content in the game. (Remember, all this larking around with the locals isn’t the main thrust of the narrative!)

Fulton confirmed that there are more than 150,000 lines of dialogue in the game, with multiple studios combining to record over 1000 hours of material. There are 1000 NPCs in the game, and you’ll be able to mess around with all of their lives if you see fit.

You could also go around killing them, but there will be a bounty system to keep you in check if you go down a criminal path. Guards will chase you, people will hate you, and towns will repopulate if you thin their populations too much.

Fulton joked that most of the British voice acting community has been brought in to help on this game. We look forward to seeing the full cast list, although familiar faces like Richard Ayoade and Hayley Atwell have already been confirmed.

Certainly, this game has our attention, and we’ll be sure to bring you more coverage as its release nears. Watch this space.

Fable is coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC on 23 February 2027.

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Authors

Black and white cut-out portrait headshot of Rob Leane, smiling against a lime green background.

Rob LeaneGaming Editor

Rob Leane is the Gaming Editor at Radio Times, overseeing our coverage of the biggest games on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, mobile and VR. Rob works across our website, social media accounts and video channels, as well as producing our weekly gaming newsletter. He has previously worked at Den of Geek, Stealth Optional and Dennis Publishing.

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