Lionhead Studios confirmed earlier that Fable Anniversary will be coming to PC later this year. The decision was made after the company was “inundated with requests to bring the game to PC”. A recent teaser video hinted that our favorite chicken chasing game in the world will be making its way to Steam. It also reveals the release date, but you’ll have to pay close attention in order to figure it out. At one point during the video a string of binary code appears on the screen. “01010011 01100101 01110000 01110100 00100000 00110010 00110000 00110001 00110100” doesn’t tell us much at first glance. But insert the code into an online Binary to Text translator and you’ll get “Sept 2014”. I have to admit this was a pretty nifty little riddle by Lionhead Studios.
In regards to the game itself, Fable Anniversary is a remastered version of Fable: The Lost Chapter. The game was initially released back in February for the Xbox 360 after it had been delayed a couple of times. Fable Anniversary features overhauled HD graphics, a new save system and incorporates Achievements. Hopefully Lionhead adds a few more improvements in order to please the PC crowd. But even if they don’t, it’s still nice to see that the game is being ported. The Fable Anniversary name refers to the fact that the original game came out 10 years ago. Fable: The Lost Chapters is an excellent title and I have lots of fond memories of it. The game combines funny characters with serious themes and features an innovative (at that time) morality system.
Unfortunately, that’s all PC gamers really have when it comes to the Fable series. The second part was never ported to the platform while the third was a buggy mess. Fable 3 also comes with Games of Windows Live integration (for some reason), which only made matters worse. Last we’ve heard the service was going to be shut down on July 1st, which means you wont be able to play Fable 3 even if you wanted to. But you don’t. It’s bad. On the other hand, Fable: The Lost Chapters is brilliant so we’re excited to see it return to the PC in a new and improved format. Fable Anniversary shouldn’t be too different from the original but the updated graphics sure do help. The Achievements are also nice if you’re into that kind of thing.
We suspect the fact that it will be available on Steam will have some sort of benefits, but we’ll have to wait for an announcement to be sure. Stay tuned for more news and updates.