Yesterday, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios Publishing Twitter account offered what sure sounded like tantalising hints that Monday would bring big news on the mysterious upcoming new Fable game. Like, really sounded like. Like, totally sounded like the sort of obvious hint marketing campaigns drop when they’re pretending it’s a surprise but want you to know full well what’s up. Nope. They’ve now deleted those tweets and apologised, saying no, no Fable news today. Oh.
“We’re excited to kick off something special tomorrow! (Just give us one more day to prepare the chickens.) 🐔” they said Sunday in the now-deleted tweets. “We’d call it our Fable Anniversary, but that name was already taken.”
A name-drop, talk of chickens, and the fact that today is the 16th anniversary of Fable: The Lost Chapters hitting Xbox (hardly the most auspicious of anniversaries, but undeniably still one). Surely, news at long last! Surely?
Microsoft announced the new Fable in 2020, being made by Forza Horizon devs Playground Games. Series creators Lionhead Studios can’t make it because Microsoft shut them down in 2016 (a warning there about the dangers of consolidation as Microsoft, Embracer, and others continue hoovering up studios). We don’t know much of anything about this “new beginning” for the silly fantasy RPG (beyond a cryptic claim that Playground have “a unique point of view on what’s core to Fable“), nor apparently will we find out anything new today.
Several hours later, the account apparently deleted those tweets and issued an apology:
Sorry for any confusion! We don’t have any big game news tomorrow, or any info about @WeArePlayground‘s upcoming Fable game.
— Xbox Game Studios Publishing (@XboxPublishing) October 18, 2021
Did someone on their social media team just get carried away with Xbox references? Weird. I suppose it did seem odd, considering that’s their account for publishing games made by external partner studios. But it was so specific! So what news were they teasing? Just that the account has returned to life.
Thanks for the warm welcome back, everyone!
We’ll be using this Twitter to:
✨ talk about the games coming out of Publishing
✨ boost the amazing work of our independent partner studios
✨ share job opportunities and hiring news from our teams
✨ …and much more! pic.twitter.com/MFkLiP9sgm— Xbox Game Studios Publishing (@XboxPublishing) June 18, 2021
The account’s last tweet was only five days prior but hey, whomst amongst us hasn’t been dramatic about taking a social media break?