Fable III Inspired By Charles Dickens' Episodic Style News

Lionhead's Peter Molyneux has revealed that Charles Dickens is providing an inspiration during the development of Fable III, but that doesn't necessarily mean we'll have a cast of street urchins and ghosts from Christmas past (although that is likely) and a commentary on social reform.

Speaking to Edge, Molyneux claims:

"One of the really big inspirations for Fable III - you'll think that this is so contrived - is Charles Dickens' books. The fascinating thing is that he wrote them as episodes in such a way that there would be cliffhangers so people would go out to buy the next, but if you've got the whole book it doesn't feel episodic."

Many of Dickens original works were serialised in weekly and monthly instalments with cliffhangers keeping readers waiting in anticipation for the next.  Judging by Molyneux's comments and the experiment of delivering Fable 2 across Xbox Live in episodic chunks we can presumably envision Fable III following a similar model, although with more regular updates then the current norm for DLC.

Dickens also used the technique to adjust his writing according to the reactions of his readers, which raises the interesting point as to whether Lionhead could follow such a technique and thus avoid controversial features such as the faithful mutt being killed.

When asked whether Molyneux (now grand overseer of the Microsoft Game Studios' European division) could see other projects following a similar model, Molyneux expressed his desire for others to follow:

"any project at a stage in development that this can fit into I'm trying to wave my arms manically and say, 'Hey, think like this!' For quite a few projects it's too late but it's really fantastic to be able to go to teams and give them an idea - maybe they take it up or maybe not."