Fable’s Albion is Smaller Than A Forza Horizon World, But Still “Massive” With “Tons to Explore”

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Playground Games’ Fable is generating a lot of excitement after its recent showcase at the Xbox Developer_Direct. The game promises unique features – like the ability to defeat a giant and leave its body to decay, build different reputations in towns, and interact with a huge number of individually created characters. These features almost make up for the fact that the game won’t let you visually change your character’s appearance like in the older Fable games.

Despite all this, Albion remains an open-world action RPG, giving you the freedom to explore and define your own character. But how large is the game world? If you’re comparing it to games like Forza Horizon, it’s best to adjust your expectations – it’s not quite as expansive.

People keep asking me how this game’s map size compares to my work on the previous one, and honestly, it’s a good question! It is smaller than a Horizon world, if we’re talking sheer size. But here’s the thing – Horizon is built for speed. You’re flying around at 250 miles per hour, covering tons of ground quickly. In our game, you’re mostly moving at a horse’s pace, so even though it’s smaller, it feels different. You explore it more deliberately, you know?

Although the team is using technology and knowledge gained from their other open-world games, they realized players were exploring Albion too quickly. Fulton emphasizes that the world remains very large, despite the change in pace.

The game is still quite lengthy and offers a huge amount to discover. We really focused on adding a lot more detail than we usually do in a Horizon game, which means you’ll move a bit slower, but you’ll notice and experience so much more. This should create a deeper sense of immersion. For instance, you can go inside every building, and these aren’t just for show – they’re fully explorable.

He explained that every building has an interior, noting people might break in or, more commonly, buy it as a home for their family. This led the team to concentrate on creating a lot more detailed design work on the ground floor and throughout the building’s interior.

If you think a game world should be as expansive as Forza Horizon, the team at Playground Games quickly learned that wasn’t practical. They put a character from Fable into the world of Forza Horizon 3, and it took forever to get anywhere. That experiment made them realize they needed to adjust the scale of their game to make it work.

So far, the game is proving to be worthwhile, even before considering how many different places you’ll get to see. It also makes the idea of buying up all the properties and becoming a landlord feel more meaningful. You’re not just managing random tenants; you’re actually building and maintaining communities.

This fall, Fable arrives on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and will be available on Game Pass from day one – it seems like we’ve only seen a small part of what the game has to offer. Plus, if you enjoy open-world adventures like Horizon, Forza Horizon 6 will be released on May 19th.

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2026-01-23 18:12