Yes, it’s true that Fable is going multiplatform in its upcoming resurgence, released on both Xbox and PlayStation. But the storied Xbox IP is about to go up against arguably PlayStation’s strongest: God of War.
Specifically, God of War: Laufey, the next game in the series that departs from Kratos and has his wife Laufey battling a new, amalgamated pantheon of gods, alongside a quirky cube. God of War: Laufey has now set a release date on PS5 of February 16, 2027. That is now exactly one week ahead of the release of Fable on both Xbox and PS5 on February 23, 2027.
This strikes me as less-than-ideal for Fable, a game that has had quite a ride in terms of landing on a final release date:
- Fable was first announced in July 2020 at the Xbox Games Showcase.
- In June 2024, a “2025” window was revealed.
- It shifted to Fall 2026 for more development time, but then ultimately was delayed to February 23, 2027, which put it well out of the way of Grand Theft Auto VI, which all games fear mightily.
So, to arrive just a week after God of War: Laufey, a game that most PlayStation players will probably still be playing the following week, seems like it could be not great, especially since this game has been at least six years in the making and has shifted release windows from 2025 to now.
PlayStation, no doubt, is meeting this situation with a shrug. While it enjoys landing a big Xbox game due to the (soon-to-be scaled-back) multiplatform push of the brand, its priority is Laufey, clearly. But for Xbox? The return of Fable for the first time in almost 17 years is a huge deal, the game crafted by one of its best current studios, Playground Games. And Xbox does want to sell a lot of copies on PS5, given that it will be yet another Day One launch on Xbox Game Pass, like all the rest.
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Along with the release date news for God of War: Laufey comes the announcement that the next God of War game will go back to featuring Kratos and will connect directly to the events of Laufey. The presumption there is that Kratos will move on to new gods, something Laufey is already doing in its strange afterlife location. The timeline for that? God of War was out in 2018, Ragnarok was out in 2022, Laufey is out in 2027. So we’re looking at 4-5 years. Let’s say 2031. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.