A dev who previously worked on two of CD Projekt Red’s biggest games, The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, has moved on to work at Playground Games to develop combat for the studio’s upcoming Fable game.
Paweł Kapała, who was formerly a senior gameplay designer at CDPR and worked at the studio for just under six years, has updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect his new role as a principal gameplay designer at Fable developer Playground. The dev lists his work there as “designing and implementing combat in Fable”. Kapała previously worked on designing and implementing Cyberpunk 2077’s melee and firearms systems into the dystopian RPG, according to his profile, as well as balancing its weapons. He also worked on “specific encounters and enemies, including boss fights” in The Witcher 3, along with its Gwent and fistfight minigames and other various aspects, in his time at CDPR.
It’s not clear yet, though, what form the combat will take in Fable. All of the entries in the fantasy game series so far have put hero battlin’ pretty front-and-centre, but details on what Playground’s own take on Albion will look like are light on the ground right now.
The major entries in the series so far have typically had combat that revolves around the three hero disciplines of strength, skill, and will, with players being able to develop a variety of attributes across these areas to create melee, ranged, and spell-focussed builds.
Fable (the original, 2004 one) had more ‘basic’ weapons like longbows, crossbows, swords, axes, and other similar melee options, while Fables 2 and 3 introduced guns, such as rifles, pistols, and blunderbusses, and new systems like spell weaving in the latter game. Whether the new game will follow its predecessors’ path or go another way isn’t known just yet.
We saw a rusty sword plonked in the ground in the Fable announcement teaser last year (above), and given they’re a staple of the series, we can probably expect to see melee combat like that again, but beyond this it’s not yet clear how Playground’s heroes will be taking the fight to Albion’s baddies. Either way, it’s good to know that the game’s combat is in safe hands with the Witcher and Cyberpunk vet.
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There’s no Fable release date to jot down just yet, but you can check out everything we know about the game so far at that link if you’re as desperate for new details as I am.