Xbox Developer Direct Jan 2026

[Legend]

[the-pi-guy]

Fable looks like one of the best things MS has ever made. - my hot take

[kitler53]

Fable looks like one of the best things MS has ever made. - my hot take

that's quite the take.  i think it looks pretty good but it still looks pretty much like fable with nicer graphics.   i expect it will be good but not sure if it is the best thing MS has ever made.   ...or if that's true i guess it is only because everything MS makes is pretty mediocre?!? 

anyways, i do want to play it.   very unlikely to get it day-1 though.   probably pick it up a year later when it is half price or less.   unless it ends up having campaign coop then i could see getting it day-1 to play with my coop buddy.   one thing i didn't like was it felt a bit too grounded.  the original fable had unrealistic and exaggerated proportions.  cartoon-ish.  i liked that.   i especially thought the magic shown felt a bit underwhelming and not at all magical.  it just needs to be a bit bigger,.. or particles or something.   



forza horizon looks fine i guess.  i'm not much for cars.  i bought GT7 to go with my psvr2 and that's probably all the car game i can handel for 1 generation.   i guess i'd consider it if forza supported VR.  if not it's just not my kind of game.



kiln is a thing.   i expect it to flop.   i in theory like that its not like anything i've ever played.   still don't want to play it.



beast of reincarnation looked kind of rough to me.  based on what i saw today it feel like a hard pass.  

[Horizon]

Forza Horizon 6 and Fable will move serious copies in Europe on PS5 this holiday.

[BananaKing]

Yeah fable looks really good not gonna lie. I love making choices and consequences in games. So it's looking really interesting to me. Hopefully the writing is good, as that's something crucial in these types of games 

[kitler53]

Yeah fable looks really good not gonna lie. I love making choices and consequences in games. So it's looking really interesting to me. Hopefully the writing is good, as that's something crucial in these types of games

the thing about fable is historically it's a franchise of massive overpromising.    peter always talked about deep and complex npc sim but in-practice you fart emoji 10 times in front of a villager and then they love you enough to marry you.   it wasn't a total lie,.. villagers indeed have individualized personas and you can do things that affect their feelings for you in a persistent way.   but no matter how much someone hates you,.. a few farts emojis and a few gifts later and anyone could have their perception of you changed from hate to love.

aka very overpromised and very underdelivered sim features.


so like,.. i'm not saying this game is as shallow as the previous games but if you look at this screen you are told exactly what the villager thinks of you and there is a "romance" button and what clearly appears to be a "gift".   i'm less confident in what the other 2 buttons are but it has the appearances of being very "fable-like" aka shallow.


i'd love to be proven wrong but nothing in yesterday's presentation proves this is any less shallow and meaningless then the original fable games.     ...it doesn't prove me right either.   we'll learn more over time but for today i'm going to maintain a healthy level of skepticism and keep my expectations in check.




that said i enjoyed playing fable 1 and 2 very much.   but in both of those Peter promise the most ground breaking game to ever exist and what was delivered was an enjoyable game properly ranked at 80/100.   nothing wrong.  nothing amazing.   right now i expect the same and think statements like "Fable looks like one of the best things MS has ever made" won't age well.

[nnodley]

Fable is probably the only one they showed that I'm interested in. 

Cool little fact about Kiln, double fine usually does things called Amnesia Fortnight where they split into small teams and game jam for 2 weeks. Kiln is one of them they made probably in like 2019 or something. So, it's cool to see something one of the artists came up with turn into a full game.

[the-pi-guy]

that's quite the take.  i think it looks pretty good but it still looks pretty much like fable with nicer graphics.  i expect it will be good but not sure if it is the best thing MS has ever made.  ...or if that's true i guess it is only because everything MS makes is pretty mediocre?!?

anyways, i do want to play it.  very unlikely to get it day-1 though.  probably pick it up a year later when it is half price or less.  unless it ends up having campaign coop then i could see getting it day-1 to play with my coop buddy.  one thing i didn't like was it felt a bit too grounded.  the original fable had unrealistic and exaggerated proportions.  cartoon-ish.  i liked that.  i especially thought the magic shown felt a bit underwhelming and not at all magical.  it just needs to be a bit bigger,.. or particles or something. 

It's mostly this.