Fable's open world contains over 1,000 NPCs, much to the horror of the RPG's art team who had to make a bed for each one of them: "They need what now?"

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Fable's open world contains over 1,000 NPCs, much to the horror of the RPG's art team who had to make a bed for each one of them: "They need what now?" News By Kaan Serin published 24 January 2026

"It brings you to a very different way of building a game"

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The upcoming Fable reboot is approaching the original trilogy's whacky life sim elements in an interesting way. Developer Playground Games has handcrafted 1,000 NPCs and dubbed them 'The Living Population' since each of them will apparently react to your heroic or evil landlording deeds differently, much to the horror of the studio's art department, who were then tasked with making 1,000 beds, give or take a few.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ about the ambitious fairytale game, studio general manager Ralph Fulton says the team "knew that we wanted every NPC to be persistent, which is to say, you could, if you were so minded, follow an NPC around all day, and they will autonomously do the things that they do every day."

"They'll get up, they'll go to work, they'll have some leisure time, they'll go back to their home, and they'll go to bed," he adds. As we saw in this week's Developer Direct, sometimes where they work or sleep will change depending on your choices. Maybe you bought every building in the land and evicted them or maybe you hired them for a specific role.

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"And immediately, you know when you hear that, certainly as a developer, you start going, 'Oh, okay, so every NPC, and there's more than 1,000 of them in the game, needs a bed.' And you have that conversation with the environment art team, and they're like, 'they need what now?' Which is, it brings you to a very different way of building a game, because it needs to be functional as well as beautiful."

Fable launches sometime later this year on Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, PC, and PS5.

Sorry, the Fable reboot doesn't feature a dog companion, Playground lead confirms: "I was hoping that nobody would ask that question"

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Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. CATEGORIES Xbox Series X PS5 PC Gaming Platforms Xbox PlayStation Kaan SerinFreelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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Logout Read more How Fable's open world fantasy lets you meddle in the lives of over 1000 living NPCs    Fable will let me romance nearly all of its 1000 NPCs "with a very few exceptions," Playground Games lead says    Baldur's Gate 3 devs tip their hat to fellow RPG Fable: "Oh my f***ing god this game just became my most anticipated"    Fable head says "we can't try to make a Lionhead game" and that the RPG reboot isn't fantasy – it's fairytale    Fable 4 is officially just Fable, and after a 16-year wait it finally launches this fall across Xbox, PC, and PS5    Why Playground Games' ambitious open-world Fable reboot is a fresh start for the series: "This has to be Playground's Fable"    Latest in RPGs Fallout lead says "spaghetti code" has nothing to do with being "lazy" – it happens when devs aren't given enough time    Fable hits PS5 day one so Microsoft can get the RPG to "as many players as we can"    Clair Obscur's Esquie actor "would love" to play the lovable lump once more, but the "story is kind of complete"    Mass Effect 5 starts hiring for a new lead developer as BioWare remains tight-lipped about its next RPG    Author who inspired JRPG hits Shin Megami Tensei and Persona says devs need to draw ideas from media other than games    Prolific modder behind Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring VR conversions pulls all his work offline after another DMCA strike    Latest in News Fable's open world has over 1000 NPCs, much to the horror of the RPG's art team who had to make a bed for all of them    Chris Pratt wanted an actual bot to play his AI co-star instead of Dune's Rebecca Ferguson    Hawkeye season 2 gets a less than promising update from Marvel producer    Resident Evil star says Zach Cregger's upcoming video game adaptation is a "comedic" and "crazy" origin story    Palworld lead hits back at claims Pocketpair "dgaf" about its survival hit, jokes "we should drop 1.0 right now"    Master Chief actor didn't like Halo 5's misleading ads because they made it harder to "stay true to the character"    GAME REVIEWSMOVIE REVIEWSTV REVIEWS

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