Fable 3 Concept Art

Some new concept art for Fable  3 was released by Lionhead yesterday http://www.lionhead.com/Fable3/images/bws_industrial.jpg. I don't think anyone should get excited by concept art as it shows little or nothing about the gameplay. However it does offer a good indication of the setting of a game, a relevant point for the Fable series, given 500 years passed between the first two games.

I loved both of the previous Fable games, particularly the last one. Peter Molyneux receives criticism for selling gamers the stars but only delivering the moon but, to extend a metaphor to breaking point, when you're on the ground the moon looks pretty good. In fact, as far as Fable II is concerned, I don't think that there was much over-selling in the preview stage and any flak aimed at Molyneux was more as as a result of his track record than of actual 'missing' content in the finished game.

The concept art, which is of Bowerstone, the main town (maybe now a city) of Albion, suggests an industrial setting, with Victorian-style warehouses lining a river/canal. Maybe an industrial revolution has hit Albion, though one that still required the bearing of swords, judging from the chap in the right-hand corner ? Baseless conjecture, of course but then the Internet is the home city of that isn't it (twinned with the town of Unfounded Rumour)?

Albion often reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Discworld and that series has also radically  developed its period setting from when it first started - compare the more traditional fantasy setting of The Colour of Magic with that shown in the later books, Making Money for instance. This has done no harm to Discworld (on the contrary, the books have improved) and hopefully the same will be said of the Albion of Fable

Of course, I might be talking rubbish (wouldn't be the first time) and this could be just a glimpse of the industrial side of Albion that Fable II didn't touch on but I await the next drop from Lionhead's dripfeed of information with interest.