GameSpy is pleased to unveil a trio of environments from Lionhead Studios' highly anticipated Fable II. When building a fantasy world, it's important to provide memorable locales that offer tantalizing opportunities for adventure. We'll begin this feature with an exclusive video, followed by descriptions from the design team and images of these previously unexplored regions. Join us as we explore the farthest reaches of Albion in this environment showcase.
Bowerstone Cemetery
There's an old saying among the people of Albion: "I'll sleep when I'm dead. Unless my corpse is magically reanimated and forced to do unholy battle for some vaguely nefarious end." Which is why the more affluent residents of Bowerstone Cemetery choose to be buried in steel-reinforced coffins. Despite the odd bout of necromancy though, the graveyard is a quiet if rather unnerving place.
Almost as big as Bowerstone itself, it is a graphic representation of the social divisions that affect modern Albion, with grand mausoleums casting their shadows over tiny, barely marked plots. If you ever stop by, be sure to say hello to the shy and sweet-tempered gravekeeper. We're almost sure those rumors of foul midnight experiments are completely unfounded.
Temple of Shadows
The more malevolent members of Albion society have long ceased worshipping such ridiculous deities as Skorm. They now worship the entirely more sensible Shadows instead. Established several centuries ago, the Temple of Shadows was founded by a group of particularly wicked men, who found a new spiritual anchor for their malice in the ruins of an Old Kingdom cathedral. For the next two decades, the members of the Temple of Shadows were involved in foul deeds across the land, taking sacrificial victims into their underground chamber and recruiting only the most evil and remorseless of people into their ranks.
The cult disappeared after unleashing a terrible power they couldn't control, and was only recently reinstated by the vile Cornelius Grim. Finding recruits as malevolent as himself has proven difficult, however.
Most current Shadow worshippers are nothing but upper-class twits for whom evil is merely a hobby. We recommend you only apply for membership if you have a strong stomach. The initiation ritual is really quite foul.
The Bandit Coast
The long road leading to Westcliff has some wonderful sights: lush vegetation, breath-taking cliffs, delightful sandy coves and the vast expanse of ocean shimmering into the horizon.
It's also crawling with smelly, ruthless, cutthroat criminals, who have built fortifications all along the coast and rendered the beautiful landscape a deathtrap for merchants and tourists alike. Those who venture down this path are advised to take utmost precautions, such as a pair of sturdy boots and a sharp, pointy implement of some sort.
We went behind the scenes for a Q&A with Senior Designer Iain Wright to learn more about the process of constructing the world of Fable II. Continue to the rest of our feature to learn more about what's in store for gamers seeking out adventure in the realm of Albion.
GameSpy: Let's begin by talking about the three Fable II environments we're unveiling today: the Bowerstone Cemetery, the Temple of Shadows, and the Bandit Coast. Can you tell us about the thematic decisions behind designing each area?
Iain Wright, Senior Designer: Bowerstone cemetery is part of Bowerstone city. By day, it's fairly tranquil and peaceful but it changes to a much scarier place at night. There is a dilapidated mansion here that would make a great place for an evil player to live and there's definitely something strange going on down in that basement.
We knew we wanted to create a cemetery because we all used to play around in graveyards as kids, well I did anyway, and they hold a certain scary kind of magic, and what cemetery is complete without a creepy mansion? The cemetery also has a great view of Fairfax castle. I didn't used to play there as a kid, there wasn't a Fairfax castle where I grew up; there was a Windsor castle though, it was a pub my dad used to hang around quite a lot.
GameSpy: How about the Temple of Shadows?
Iain Wright: The working title for this location was The Temple of Evil, which goes a long way to describing what it is. Built in the mountain deep beneath a huge ruined monastery, it's one of the many internal regions we have in Fable II. If you are an evil player you will be seeing quite a lot of this place, but the inhabitants still make being evil amusing. They have a "wheel of fortune"-style device which can cause all kinds of pain and misery but in a way that's both productive and fun.
The acolytes of the Temple of Shadows are truly, deeply evil, but in an organized and efficient way, a lot like estate agents or lawyers. We built The Temple of Shadows to reflect the deep-seated evil and misery but also catered to the need for ergonomic office space and a productive working environment. Trying to make a bastion of pure evil that also conforms to strict health and safety standards was a new challenge to most of us.
GameSpy: And the Bandit Coast?
Iain Wright: This coastal region grew out of our attempt at creating an outdoor dungeon, we wanted a simple linear feel that a dungeon gives but in an external coastal setting. It worked out so well that we used it between two other regions to represent a journey.
We used the same technique in a few other places throughout Albion. It's a beautiful coastline with impressive sea views, only spoiled by the cutthroat bandits that have made it their home.
GameSpy: What steps are involved in designing Fable II environments?
Iain Wright: We start with the basic idea, we know that we need to tick certain boxes with each of our regions. For example, we know if we are about to create a city region, a cliff-top region, a deep dark forest and so on. That's our starting point.
From there we will sketch out the basic region on paper so that we can ensure we cater to all the proposed gameplay and scenes.
We used the engine and tools from Fable: The Lost Chapters to rough out the regions and make sure that the basic ideas and themes were sound.
The next step is to get the region on screen as quickly as possible so that we can run around in there and see how it looks and plays. We use SketchUp to whitebox all of the buildings and assets in a region and then export those to the Fable II engine. We can now place these assets using our game editor, Fable Ed, to create a rough version of the region that has all of the critical dimensions in place. We need to cater to our navigation system, morphing hero, the dog, multiplayer, the simulation, combat, etc. so making sure our doorways, step angles, vault heights, cover spots and so on are correct is important at this stage and saves costly reworking of assets later on.
One of the benefits of white boxing the assets is that they are already integrated into our asset system, meaning that the artists can open them up directly into the art tool and start the job of making these simple models look nice. As they do that, the basic version of the region that we have laid out starts to come alive as the artists work their magic and final assets replace the rough-looking versions we made.
GameSpy: How large is the world of Fable II?
Iain Wright: The world of Albion is a lot bigger this time around; it's also a lot more open. The original Fable had beautiful-looking regions but they were slightly limited in the freedom they offered. One of the first things we wanted to do this time around was to open Albion up. There are no more invisible walls: You can swim, you can vault over fences and cliffs. We really wanted to free players up to go wherever they choose.
As for the actual footprint of Albion, it's roughly (counts on fingers) 4,608 meters or 2.8632 miles for our external areas and 3,497 meters or 2.1729 miles for our underground caves, tombs and dungeons so the entire playable world is 5.0361 square miles, give or take a centimeter. Math isn't my strongpoint.
There are also hundreds of buildings that need to be filled up with clutter and sim items, most of which are upgradeable to reflect the economy. Then there are the dozens of caves and tombs, all hand-built and decorated. Peter is going to have a word with his friend, the Queen of England, to get the level designers O.B.Es like his.
GameSpy: How is designing an environment for Fable II different from how a level would be designed for a typical adventure game or RPG?
Iain Wright: There are a lot of factors we need to take into account such as couch and LIVE co-op, NPC followers, the dog, the changing world, the economy, being able to buy everything and ensuring the regions cater to the various combat styles being some of the biggest challenges we faced.
The nonlinear nature of Fable II needs to be taken into account from the outset as we need to be careful to ensure that we aren't closing off any parts of the game based on choices the player may or may not make.
One of the main tenets of Fable II is freedom and that extends to the world of Albion.
While we want to create a rich, compelling environment we also want it to be as accessible as possible while still catering to players that like to explore and discover things for themselves. There's a lot of content that players can find on their own. We also have a lot of quests based on owning property: Buying certain buildings will unlock specific quests so we have yet another layer of content that's there to be discovered.
GameSpy: One of the themes of Fable II is providing the player with the freedom to change the world around them. How does this impact level design?
Iain Wright: It has a huge effect on the way we structure and build the regions, in some cases a single region can drastically change in as many as five major ways with variants and combinations within that. We have to build and keep track of all of those potential changes and when they get switched on and off. We also have the more standard changes like time of day, weather and seasons.
One of the great things about being able to play Fable II online with friends is that you can see firsthand how different their world is in comparison to yours, and it's extremely unlikely that everyone will make the same choices across the entire game. Expect to see a lot of different versions of Albion.
GameSpy: Peter Molyneux has set high expectations for Fable II. What were the most important features that had to be implemented into the level design in order to deliver on this?
Iain Wright: Fable II is set 500 years after the original game so there is a lot of lore and history that we refer to. You don't need to have played the original to play Fable II but if you are a fan of the first game then there are a lot of places, names and items that you will recognize.
I mentioned earlier that we wanted to open the world up but we also wanted to keep it as accessible and true to the original as possible. Keeping the level of detail and organic look over much larger areas was a big challenge. Making the different cities, forests, dungeons and temples feel like authentic places in Albion was also paramount to us when designing the world.
Add to this the dozens and dozens of dungeons and caves, enough to almost mirror the overworld, and you are getting a feel for just how large and detailed Albion is. We think people will have a lot of fun exploring.
GameSpy: According to Molyneux's presentations, the actions that you undertake as a youth will impact the future of the world. Is this a binary decision as far as the environments are concerned, so there might be two versions of a city, or does this mostly impact the characters and not the world itself?
Iain Wright: Fable II is all about choices. Choices you make as a child do have impact on the world and this continues all the way through the game. There may be multiple versions of a city; helping certain people could mean that they thrive and expand their homestead or business, but choosing to ignore their plea for help could mean the region will be overrun with bandits, making traveling through that region difficult. So the regions will change but so will your relationship with them.
Making a rash decision in the now could prove costly as you travel through the same region years later and see what happened due to choices you made.
http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/fable-2/898512p1.html
HD video is so good. 2nd most anticipated title this fall personally.
Video here:
Revelations said:
