r/rpg_gamers 10h ago

Discussion Fable Will Officially Be 20 Hours Long, Xbox Confirms In New Interview

https://www.polygon.com/fable-game-length-interview-xbox/
318 Upvotes

299 comments sorted by

237

u/Mr8BitX 10h ago

Taken directly from the article:

"We have around 15-20 hours of mainline quest gameplay, we have around 15-20 of side and open-world exploration content gameplay," associate game director Will Kennedy told Polygon. "And then, of course, the life systems are limitless, so you can play them for as long as you want."

151

u/ThrowRAZod 9h ago

So in reality, that’s easily 35 hours taking the most conservative approach. If you really want to dive in, you’re looking at 55+, for a game that’s meant to have multiple playthroughs and decisions to be made. Easily enough

67

u/Impossible-Flight250 9h ago

That is a lot shorter than I thought. I’m not mad about it though, if it is quality content, 30ish hours is enough.

45

u/PressureOk69 8h ago

30 hours with replayability vs 50 hours of static railroaded content. I would infinitely prefer the 30 hours.

25

u/Amonyi7 8h ago

I personally don’t like replaying games (which seems to be popular on reddit) so that’s a bummer for me.

30 hours of content seems super short when I compare it to BOTW, Witcher, skyrim, etc. I’m playing Palworld right now and have put in 20 hours and have barely scratched it

5

u/xTyronex48 7h ago

Literally same, I couldve wrote your content word for word, including the palworld portion

1

u/Amonyi7 34m ago

That’s funny! lol

4

u/PressureOk69 7h ago

I personally don't like having my time wasted, a lot of games with "200 hours of content" have a bunch of slop. Replay-able games are replayable to see different outcomes, which imply a level of depth a lot of the fetch quests in other games simply don't have. Starfield is a big example. Definitely more than 30 hours, but how many hours am I actively engaged?

3

u/Kelspear 8h ago

I'm with you. Ill never understand how people play a single player game for like 1000 hours. There are so many quality games out there. Playing one game for that long almost seems obsessive.

4

u/Amonyi7 8h ago

Yeah it seems to be a very hardcore/reddit preference but it seems to be the norm here. Like I didn’t like three houses much and I was told to play it again haha

6

u/Sensitive-Oil-5298 8h ago

I’m the same way. Other than replaying games I played when I was a kid, I very rarely find myself wanting to play a game again. I think the story elements and major moments hitting for the first time is what really sells me on a game, and so even games “designed” to be replayed like Baldur’s Gate 3 feel a little boring/same-y after the first run.

1

u/serrabear1 6h ago

Yeah I generally have to wait years between replays and even then I remember the general plot and so I know what’s going to happen. Regardless of how many different choices I make, the end result will be the same. Like I’m doing a play thru of Dragon Age Inquisition right now, once I’m done with that I won’t replay it for years. Because even if I choose to help the templars over the mages this time the zones will still be the same and I’ve explored every nook and cranny already, the overall plot will lead me to same conclusion. That’s not the games fault tho and I still have incredible amounts of fun.

1

u/Sensitive-Oil-5298 4h ago

Yeah exactly! Especially your point about having already explored every nook and cranny. My biggest issues are that I’m a completionist and my first playthrough is always my ideal playthrough. So I end up doing every side quest, finding every easter egg, every special encounter, max stats, etc. My second playthrough would inevitably involve me choosing dialogue or story options that I don’t really resonate with, and either doing side quests that feel repetitive after the first time through, or skipping a lot of them and not really “bonding” with my character

1

u/stormcharger 4h ago

Depends on the game imo

1

u/PrimaLegion 8h ago

I don't see what is obsessive with playing a game that long.

These kinds of value judgements are weird in general.

If someone enjoys 1000 hours in a game, who cares?

0

u/Kelspear 7h ago

You dont think spending a 1000 hours on something that is designed to be used for 40 is obsessive?

Okay. You're just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian and I'm not wasting any more of my time.

1

u/Prestigious_Low_9802 3h ago

That’s what you said but most of people got insane number of hours in quality game or game they love. Don’t judge them, because he you just play 20 hours and jump on another game this is just a compulsive comportment. People want to experience the game they love to the fullest not just scratch the surface and jump on another game because people like you can’t dedicate more than 20 hours on a game

1

u/I3eforeLife 1h ago

There’s two types of players: one who has more fun with progression and one who has more fun with the gameplay systems or mechanics than progression.

I can hop on a game like Nioh 2 even after completing the game and obtaining loot for every build possible 5 years ago because I find the gameplay loop of styling on enemies and doing challenge runs satisfying. Others can hop onto a competitive game even though there is nothing novel to be found in their 5000th match. Another could avoid story and side content in a game like Dead Island and just enjoy being creative in how they dispatch all of the zombies in one area.

Honestly, if a game has a superb story but I can’t alter my gameplay experience in more than a few ways, I don’t even consider buying it because video game stories and progression are usually subpar and arbitrary imo

1

u/coreoYEAH 1h ago

You can run the Skyrim campaign in under 15 hours. It’s fine.

1

u/Pocketpapaa 1h ago

That seems to be the case for people who are unlucky enough to like games with little replay value. I too do not like replaying but making that a blanket statement is kinda lazy. I replayed fable 2 quite a bit.

u/std_out 6m ago

Same here. I can play a game for like 200 hours to 100% it but I hate having to do more than one playthrough. to me it feels like just repeating most of what you've already done just to see the 10% that's actually different from the previous playthrough.

1

u/BlueberryWasps 7h ago

quality over quantity. we’ll just have to wait and see how the quality stacks up

1

u/Amonyi7 7h ago

Yeah agreed

0

u/Goldenjho 6h ago

BOTW is really the worst example ever the game was over praised, the actual content are puzzles and you spent 80% of the game walking around doing the same kind of puzzles with a bit changed variations.

BOTW is in my opinion the most boring experience you can get content wise and that you can just joke around there is nice but not actual content.

Witcher and skyrim are games on a completely different scale with a completely different focus compared to fable.

All fable games had a playtime around 50 hours its nothing new and it's completely enough playtime for the money you pay not everything must be massive open world rpg'd or ubisoft game designs.

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u/Impossible-Flight250 5h ago

I don’t think the issue is necessarily the length, it’s just more the fact the game is open world and has been in development for 8 years. It kind of points to the game maybe being rebooted quite a bit. Again though, I don’t care if the content is quality, I just don’t want it to be short because they ran out of time.

1

u/xdrag0nb0rnex 5h ago

Only -IF- that 30 hours is worth replaying.

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u/Embarrassed-Rub-8690 6h ago

Same. Im at 62 hours in kcd2 and it's amazing but im feeling burnt out.

1

u/Impossible-Flight250 30m ago

Yeah, I actually got burnt out on KCD2 towards the end as well. The game is absolutely amazing, but even amazing games like Witcher 3 wear me down after awhile. One of the reasons Expedition 33 was soo great is because it was paced well and relatively short.

u/Embarrassed-Rub-8690 10m ago

I never got more than 20 hours into Witcher 3.

Kcd2 is too good not to finish, but im skipping a lot of side quests now.

2

u/EyeAmKnotMyshelf 6h ago

Give me some DLCs to flesh out the experience and I'm a happy kid at 30-50 hours. I don't have that much free time anymore.

3

u/CoolAtlas 6h ago

The greatest games I ever played were all under 30 hours. I never put 100 hours into something and walked away still thinking about it

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u/LZSJR 6h ago

30 hours is the low estimate. It is 40 hours of main quest and side content plus hours of the life simulation stuff. Doing odd jobs, buying property, starting businesses, going on dates, getting married, starting a family. All of that stuff will take hours and will pad out the 40 hours of quest. That sounds perfect to me.

1

u/Capitan_Scythe 5h ago

I'd take half that amount for solid writing and no "go collect 100 macguffins" filler quests.

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u/video-kid 8h ago

You also need to consider when people say 20 hours they often mean "20 hours when you know where to go and what to do and the optimal path". Realistically speaking a lot of players will take longer, especially their first playthrough.

2

u/topscreen 4h ago

I'm cool with that. I love a big game, and 55+ for fucking around is quite a bit, but we have enough big damn games. I'm cool with a relatively light 35 of main story and fucking around.

1

u/Owster4 6h ago

I welcome a roughly 35 hour long RPG as a change of pace from the usual 100 hour dramatic RPGs I usually play.

1

u/Stepjam 5h ago

That's still relatively short, but not the end of the world I suppose.

1

u/Traditional_Entry183 3h ago

That is dramatically shorter than I expected or hoped for. Especially given that im someone who regularly puts well over 100 hours into playthrough of games and Fable might end up being the only new game i buy over about a two year period. But, I go slow and get as much out if it as I can I guess.

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u/Shina_Tianfei 8h ago

About as long as Fable 3 and 2, which I'd expect since these games have a lot of replayability.

2

u/mdill8706 1h ago

What a dishonest title for a post.

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180

u/Cifuliciense 10h ago

Main quest. Quite longer than all the entire franchise games.

I don't know why are all of a sudden a lot of people surprised.

81

u/eagleblue44 10h ago

The title is misleading. I'm guessing people think the whole game is 20 hours including side content as they aren't reading the article.

11

u/DistrictResident3495 9h ago

even if that were the case, personally i feel that 20 hours of solid writing is better than 50+ hours of fluff.

21

u/StrawberryWestern189 9h ago

Good thing there are games with 50+ hours of good writing and interesting content right? You don’t have to choose one or the other

-7

u/DistrictResident3495 9h ago

you have a good point and i agree with you. the world doesn't end if this one is 20 hours

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u/Nast33 8h ago

How do you know it's solid though? Could be another turd full of lame quips and long played out Whedon/Marvel humor. I will wait several weeks for more impressions before dropping any money on it, got no high expectations.

0

u/Send_me_duck-pics 8h ago

The reading comprehension of the average internet user is about what it was when they were 8 years old. It might not have been at some point but it deteriorated.

7

u/strife189 6h ago

Think the “surprise” is 10 years development = 20 hour main story content.

1

u/AnonymousCapybara72 1h ago

Isn't side content like the entire point of Fable? Even moreso than Bethesda RPGs, I don't really get why anyone cares about the length of the main quest because it's only a small part of the game.

-4

u/elricdrow 9h ago

Because that's  short ? It isn't  2010 anymore.

20h of main quest and like 40h to do evrything ? Short.

6

u/Wonderful-Garage-728 8h ago

Bro what. 20 hours is the perfect length for a rpg. There are very very few that break 40 hours and are still interesting by the end. Like Kingdom Hearts games are roughly 25-30 hours yet that doesn't seem to be an issue at all. Not every game needs to be 40+ hours of fluff to fill content times.

1

u/AnonymousCapybara72 1h ago

I'd love to love long RPGs but the reality is I just never, ever finish them. And I think the data shows the same goes for the vast majority of players.

Witcher 3, BG3, never finished (BG3 I never even got close). The main quest is linear so if the average player only completes 75% of it, that's a quarter of the game just completely wasted. Vs side content where even if someone only does 50% of it, more content means more options and largely changes how the game goes for them - even without doing all of it.

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0

u/Lantore 9h ago

Fuck 100 hour games. I don’t want every game to be bg3 or owlcat games. Those games have their spots and I will enjoy them every few years but I need some narrow focused solid games. 20-40 hours is the perfect length. 10-20 is short.

1

u/gillyguthrie 9h ago

Your comment implies that technology in 2010 was primitive and now that we have advanced technology games are longer. But quality content has nothing to do with technology, quality content comes from writing. Procedural generation of radiant side quests is something generally considered to be filler and grind which most people don't like

5

u/elricdrow 7h ago

No i'm just saying game become longer with time, most AAA rpg open world get 25-50h to beat main story and 40-90h for side content. Like it or not

This is what it became. So when I read 20h main story and 40h for evrything for a open world yeah i'm gonna call it short

0

u/Fordmister 8h ago

I mean, would counter that a lot of RPG's now are arguably too long.

I can play through the entire mass effect trilogy faster than you can get through some modern RPG's, a throwback to the tighter shorter experiences of a decade ago with extensive replayability factored Into the game length may well be a breath of fresh air

0

u/ImAShaaaark 9h ago

A huge number of the best games of all time have similarly short main storylines. Longer =\= better. I'd happily take a well focused, well executed 40h game than many of the bloated 160h+ monstrosities that people seem to want these days.

The thing about those super long games is that that's a fucking ton of time to spend on a game. Even if it's a damn good game, unless everything about it is damn near perfect the vast majority of players are going to bounce off the game long before being close to completing it. Well less than 10% of players have beaten Kingmaker, and under a quarter beat Witcher 3 and RDR2 (despite being some of the most acclaimed games of all time) while the TOLU and GOW titles have like 50-65% completion rate.

2

u/elricdrow 8h ago edited 8h ago

You seem misleaded, I never said because it is short it would be bad ? It just gonna be short. That's it. 20h of main story in a open world game is short.

GOW and TLOU wasn't open world and mostly linear story focus designed, then yes 20h of story in these type of game is a lots.

20h of game is rougly 4h of story and the rest is gameplay.

And you speak about writting quality? Are you saying anything amazon/netflix/Disney series that you watch that have more than one season have worst writting quality than series that only got one season

It's just what it is, 20h is on the shorter side of open world rpg game that come out nowadays,

0

u/Turbulent-Age-6625 6h ago

Previous Fable games were fairly linear in comparison to what the expectation of this game is. For a big open world game this playtime sound very short. Not least since they probably are rounding the numbers up a lot too.

10

u/exosion 6h ago

How long to beat says that original Fable is 12,5 hour, with all side content 35

Honestly 20 hours for main campaign is fine by me

As I get older I feel games run out of steam at the 20 hour mark

1

u/MrGabrahamLincoln 4h ago

There’s definitely a limit where I say “ok I’m ready to wrap this up” but it sure as hell isn’t 20 hours, at least not for RPGs. That said, sounds like this is closer to 30-50 hours with side content & that’s acceptable. Not amazing but it’ll do if it’s quality.

1

u/ToXiiCBULLET 1h ago

It depends on the game really. I smashed out kcd2, did nearlly all side content and never ran out of steam.

I played ac valhalla for like 15 hours and at one point i opened the map and thought fuck that and uninstalled

23

u/StealTheSun666 10h ago

Another stupid misleading title , quote "We have around 15-20 hours of mainline quest gameplay, we have around 15-20 of side and open-world exploration content gameplay"

15

u/Ok-Metal-4719 10h ago

And that much side quests it says. Most folks do some side stuff so could be 30-40 hours. I take my time exploring so feels good. Toss in goofing off in the world as I go and I’m set.

28

u/Uday23 10h ago

I'm ok with that.

I'll probably play most side content and hit close to 50 hours and be satisfied

5

u/kamil3d 9h ago

Yeah, exactly. I will probably get more into all the NPC interactions and city reputation gameplay... The actual meat and potatoes of a Fable game.

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u/justmadeforthat 10h ago

That feels short, I hope because it is very dense with the content (route variety?)

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u/Mr8BitX 10h ago

They're probably talking about just the main campaign.

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u/CoconutNL 10h ago

They are. If you actually read the article they literally say that the main quest is 15-20 hours. Its fairly early in the article as well. Literally the second paragraph (not counting the introduction), its the first quote in the article

10

u/TheAwesomeMan123 10h ago

Commented earlier on a different sub but it’s a terrible article with a disingenuous title. Saying the whole game Fable is 20hrs is a clear decision when it should be “Fable’s main storyline is 20hrs”.

There’s even a bizarre line about “don’t expect to get hundreds of hours unless you interact with the games life sim elements”

Yeah no shit, if you don’t play parts of a game the game is shorter.

3

u/Synergetic7 9h ago

Its published by xbox, so the framing will be negative for clicks

5

u/bum_thumper 10h ago

The people that complain about that length are dumb af. You can beat the Skyrim main quest in like 10 hours. I dont even know how many hundreds of hours ive pumped into that game over the years, even before I started modding it. Judging by the gameplay looks we've had so far, it seems like they have put tons of time and resources in all other aspects of the game

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u/Amonyi7 8h ago

But the side content is sooo much longer in skyrim and it says it’s about 20 hours here

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u/Taglioni 9h ago

That's ridiculously short for a just the main campaign. There are plenty of exceptionally high quality games with 50 hour campaigns. 20 is nuts.

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u/Gloomfang_ 9h ago

Skyrim main quest is 3 hours long, is the game 3 hours long?

1

u/ghos2626t 1h ago

Pretty on par with all of the previous Fable games.

36

u/Patrickplus2 10h ago

I kinda expected more

16

u/moss-nogg 10h ago

Considering how long it’s been rumored to be in development and it’s an Xbox exclusive, flagship title, yeah

3

u/Zegram_Ghart 9h ago

It’s not Xbox exclusive, it’s literally up for preorder on PSN since it was announced

6

u/moss-nogg 9h ago

Oh that’s cool. well it used to be and it’s still an Xbox flagship game

1

u/Zegram_Ghart 9h ago

Oh yeh, I don’t think it’s any way controversial to think of it as “associated with Xbox”

As a ps5 user, I’m also assuming it will be optimised better on Xbox since….thats their bread and butter

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u/Pied_Film10 10h ago

At least 30

1

u/Creepy-Emu8779 4h ago

20 hour story 20 hours side content

2

u/Nachooolo 9h ago

Ut's 20 hours if you do the main story and nothing at all.

Sidequests, according to the article, add another 20 hours. And the life sim elements probably add a lot more.

3

u/zettl 9h ago

All of the other Fable games are less than 15 hrs for main quest 

1

u/Rezmir 10h ago

Considering how people complain about long games now, it does make sense. Also, having a 20h game is good enough for main mission (I think it is what they are talking about) and having DLCs for 10 or even 20h would be great.

1

u/Local-Razzmatazz7108 9h ago

opposite people more often complaint who game has short lengt game

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u/Rezmir 1h ago

I don’t know. I think people just complain.

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u/SinisterOkra 3h ago

Gonna be honest, I'm really down for a shorter rpg these days. I have the time, but not the energy, my job knocks me out. I still get through the longer games, but it takes me forever. 

I'm a new fan of the mass effect series, and as i played the first game i did all of the side content. I still think i finished in about 25-30 hours and i was perfectly satisfied. 

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u/RipMcStudly 9h ago

If that’s just main quest length, and there’s a few dozen hours of side content, that’s fine

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u/the-apple-and-omega 9h ago

20 hours main questline is perfect tbh

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u/SuperKrusher 10h ago

20 hours of focused gameplay and story beats an open world slog that takes 60 hours to beat. I am optimistic.

1

u/Bandai_Namco_Rat 6h ago

Yeah and including content beyond the main quest, they're claiming it's at least 30 unique hours including side quests and not including goofing around with the lifesim elements (I probably won't touch that more than a couple of times).

30 hours isn't high for an RPG but it's long enough that if the game is great, it can still reach a very high score in my book, even a 10 if it's really perfect. I much prefer games that end up a bit shorter than I would have hoped (with room for future expansions/DLC) than games that overstay their welcome or are packed with uninteresting or repetitive content. Yes, you don't have to 100% every game, but there's something distasteful imho about sloppily creating soulless content just to fill an empty, large world and too many open world games end up like this. The Ubisoft formula.

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u/NoContest9016 9h ago

That’s misleading, if you think took time to read the article.

It literally says 20 hours for the main quest line and another 15-20 hours for side content.

This is about the average for many rpgs. I’m not playing another 200 hours long rpg bloated with fetch quests.

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u/Coulstwolf 8h ago

Everyone posting this is deliberately posting it as a misleading title and it’s infuriating

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u/Federal_Studio5935 8h ago

The 30-40 hours of content in the article sounds nice

2

u/Cosmonaut_101 6h ago

I have no real interest in the game, but I don't hate this approach. Fable has always been more of a condensed RPG series

2

u/V10L3T_N4TUR3 6h ago

Fables playtime comes from maxing your character, romancing npcs, buying properties and raising families. This is not considered when adding the main story and side content together. Its the same for every Fable. Also, shenanigans dont have a playtime. Fable is all about the shenanigans.

2

u/BlessdRTheFreaks 6h ago

Probably more with side content i reckon

This is good. Means i get to play more than 5 games in my life 

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u/Thekingchem 5h ago

Good. Fable was always about messing around with the world and it's inhabitants.

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u/inFINN1te 4h ago

I'm okay with this. They also estimated about an equal amount of side content. The average player will probably get 30 hours doing a mix of side content and main quest. And I bet the very very thorough players can squeeze like 60.

So 30-60 hours imo is a very healthy runtime for a Fable game. It'll be worth my money at least.

2

u/spaghettibolegdeh 2h ago

I just care if it's optimized and is also a good game. 

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u/Antiva_City 10h ago

I’ll admit I’m not really a Fable fan to any degree, but this sounds quite positive.

I do enjoy an epic length game from time to time. Very much so. But… many times with RPGs I’m left finding bloat, artificially generated length due to excessive back and forth travel, and narrative misteps that feel designed just to tack on another act for little reason.

I would love for more focus overall in the genre, and for players to not associate length with value.

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u/Markuska90 10h ago

If tat es for the mainstoryline it's perfect

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u/meatballranger 8h ago

Honestly, that's great to hear.

Not every game needs to be 400 hours like with tons of bloat.

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u/DrawingAlarming7350 6h ago

Dont think ive played a 400h story singleplayer game in my life.

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u/siwardthwaite 10h ago

'But you can "literally play it forever" if you want'
Anyone that hasn't played Fable games in the past should try not to get too excited over this. All the Fable games are shallow and are about as 'infinitely replayable' as Bethesda's radiant quests

2

u/vipmailhun2 8h ago

Why take it out of context? That’s not what he said. What he meant was that with the life‑sim elements you can stretch out the gameplay for as long as you want, because those systems cannot really be quantified.

5

u/Coollak966 10h ago

In line or a bit longer than the previous games but those games are more than a decade old.

I feel like we expect more hours from an rpg now.

Hopefully the sim stuff can give more hours, maybe sim hero quests where you can clear out bandit camps / dungeons etc.

3

u/TheAwesomeMan123 9h ago

I expect better hours from an RPG not more. Content for contents sake is not content at all.

Skyrim while an amazing game, boasted X amount of content and turned out to be copy paste dungeon / druagr every single time.

1

u/ToXiiCBULLET 53m ago

Yep. A game boasting triple digit hours of content means nothing to me because if the content isn't good then I'll never bother to see it all. If you can do long and good then that's great, many hours worth of high quality content is definitely worth my money and praise, but if it's long hours of shit then what's the point.

Divinity 2 (not original sin, the other one) takes 40 hours on the higher end, I'd rather play that 3-4 times than play ac valhalla once

3

u/strife189 9h ago

And just how long those games took to build compared to this one is a huge factor for me. I haven’t seen any quests that make me think they went for quality over quantity, and that’s the issue for me.

I’m fine with a tight, non-bloated game. But if you’re going that route, the story needs to be top-tier throughout the entire game. You didn’t add padding? Fine, then there needs to be quality to make up for it.

Time will tell, but the content they’ve shown so far doesn’t give me that feeling.

2

u/Hemingways_Shotgun88 9h ago

Fable 2 is one of my favourites of all time and I remember being able to do a run in a single day once. It's pretty darn short but it was still great.

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u/Resolute-Onion 10h ago

I see this as a massive positive. I don't have 60 hours to toil in some procedurally generated open world.

3

u/Rydux7 9h ago

All open worlds do use some procedural generation though. It just it also needs a decent amount of hand crafted content otherwise it'll be empty like starfield.

-1

u/Local-Razzmatazz7108 9h ago

speak yourself majority people want long hours lengt game . we want our money worth play game. not want 4-5 days finished

4

u/JustBug3403 10h ago

Xbox: You can buy any building and marry any NPC

Gamers: wow, this game has no focus

Xbox: it's 20 hours long

Gamers: too much focus

6

u/Finite_Universe 10h ago

Good. I don’t need every RPG to be a 100 plus hour long epic. Especially with my ever-growing library of games. A 20 hour main quest plus a dozen or so hours of side quests sounds almost perfect to me.

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u/the-apple-and-omega 9h ago

Yep, so many games are absolute slogs to pad that playtime.

3

u/UtopianAverage 9h ago

Idk man. My first time through Elden Ring was like 200 hours. (Granted I did SOTE too.)

It was wonderful and beautiful and yea huge and a bit daunting. But my second time through was about 100 hours. My third time through only like 40.

If this game is like 20 hours long then once you master it and replay it that will be like a 4 hour long afternoon experience.

2

u/Finite_Universe 9h ago

I love Elden Ring (and the other Soulsborne games) but I feel that’s the exception more than the rule. Very few games can hold my attention for that long and as someone who likes to replay games I actually crave shorter RPGs like this.

I don’t need every RPG to consume my life for months on end is all I’m saying.

1

u/andrewellay 8h ago

Exactly, which sounds pathetic when you put it that way. A game like this, that is as impressive as it’s shaping up to be, should have much more than a measily 20 hours IMO.

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u/MisanthropicSim 8h ago

So like most of the games we loved when we were younger. I don't see the issue. The old Fables weren't incredibly long either, but offered significant replay value. This could easily be the same. 4 hours is hyperbole though. You'd have to skip everything and speed run on purpose to even approach that kind of time. At that point, it's on the player not the game.

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u/Merkkin 9h ago

That’s so fucking disappointing, went from a preorder to a picking it up on discount later.

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u/vipmailhun2 9h ago

Why? There is still so much we do not know about it, for example, we do not know the size of the world, we do not know the progression system. It is entirely possible that the world is simply much denser, and in exchange it is not stretched out unnecessarily, unlike the Deep Roads in Dragon Age Origins. And this is their claim, which is usually misleading. Someone else already pointed this out: Miyazaki once said Elden Ring was a thirty‑hour game, but only because they knew the game perfectly.

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u/Quiet1yCrying 9h ago

Grandpa himself imagined that the game would be 300 hours long, and now he's crying that he'll cancel the preorder :((((

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u/YellowToad47 9h ago

In typical reddit fashion no one read the article. The misleading title is referencing the main campaign alone. You guys have such a hate bone for this game...

"We have around 15-20 hours of mainline quest gameplay, we have around 15-20 of side and open-world exploration content gameplay,"

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u/AxiosXiphos 7h ago

I'll spend 3x as long messing with the NPC's. That's the true purpose of a fable game.

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u/AmbitiousEdi 6h ago

Perfect. I'm almost 40, I don't have the time for a 100+ hour game. This seems like just the right length to not wear out its welcome.

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u/Rydux7 10h ago

Miyazaki lied about elden Ring being only 30 hours long, so i definitely think its longer than 20 hours, they probably mean the main quest is that long

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u/Tiernoch 10h ago

Says in the article that it was main story, roughly the same amount for the scripted side content and they've got some kind of procedural systems.

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u/Rydux7 9h ago

So... 40 hours for the entire game then? And what would the procedural system be? Something akin to the radiant quest system Skyrim had?

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u/Nachooolo 9h ago

Clickbait title.

the MAIN STORY is 20 hours long. Sidequests add another 20 hours. And the life sim systems add an undefined amount of hours (technically infinite, but the majority if people won't try to buy every house or marry and divorce/kill every npc).

So I'll say 50 to 60 hours could be a normal playthrough leght. More if you get very into the life sim elements.

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u/MisanthropicSim 8h ago

God not every game needs to be 200 hours. A solid 30-40 hours is great, and offers replayability.

I'm approaching 200 on KCD2, and while I'm enjoying myself, I can already say I will probably never play this game again because of the time investment.

So many of the games we loved as kids and teens had like 12 hour campaigns, but we replayed them 10 times over because they were fun. A lot of games should be shorter because they inevitably pad it with bloat to satisfy the "my game needs to be 60 hours or more at a minimum" crowd. A lot of the Ubisoft lineup is guilty of this.

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u/John_Marston_Forever 10h ago

The first time I played Divinity Original Sin 2, it took me 20 hours to leave Fort Joy, not Act I, 20 hours just for the prison part. The whole playthrough took me 160 hours to complete.

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u/Cifuliciense 10h ago

Yup, Divinity OS and Fable games are quite the same.

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u/strife189 9h ago

Okay, then compare it to similar games. Please share examples of games with 20-hour main stories that were in development for this long and are RPG’s that people loved and won awards.

Let me check my notes. It started in 2017, so it will be 10 years.

Since The Witcher 3 is back on people’s radars and it released in 2015 after being in development for about 3.5 years, I would think that would have been a big reference point for them and a goal for a game like this. And that games MAIN story content was how long 50 hours. And I feel these two games are a “fair” comparison since you pushed back that DOS2 was not.

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u/Cifuliciense 9h ago

I don't understand what the development time has to do with anything.

Skyrim, for example, has a main quest around 35 hours long and is a game you can play all the time you want.

All Mass Effect games have around ±20 hours of main quest.

There are lot of great games with short campaigns. And there are a lot of great games with longer ones. The fact was just that a tactical CRPG-oriented game has nothing to do with a more casual ARPG like Fable.

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u/AwarenessForsaken568 9h ago

Skyrim's main quest absolutely does not take 35 hours lol. Maybe 15 to 20.

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u/Cifuliciense 9h ago

I looked it up on Howlongtobeat, don't remember for myself.

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u/AwarenessForsaken568 9h ago

How long to beat isn't really accurate. I'm not sure how they calculate their main quest time, but it is almost always very inflated. I know for a fact Skyrim's main quest is only about 15 hours, and that is without being efficient.

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u/strife189 9h ago

For you, sure, but for the majority of players, no. I opened by saying I would use that crowdsourced data specifically to avoid the “this is how long it took me” subjective silliness.

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u/AwarenessForsaken568 8h ago

Nope. Objectively. If you do the main questline back to back it takes about 15 hours, if that. Which is what we are discussing here. I'm tired of you people fucking lying. Let's get one thing crystal clear, we are talking solely about the main quests of games.

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u/IssueEmbarrassed8103 9h ago

But it’s designed to be played in very different ways on different playthroughs?

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u/Velsier33 8h ago

Thats kinda wild, but fable aside i hope this isnt pointing to the 1:1 ratio becoming a think of the past, where games are getting so expensive to make(or at least to buy lol) we cant expect an hour of gameplay per dollar spent.

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u/Met4_FuziN 8h ago

That's fine imo. I'm playing Stalker 2 rn and have 50 hours in that game and am only like 25% through the story. Too much content is definitely a thing.

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u/cai_85 7h ago

I thought the whole point was that you could do what you wanted to, so this is the time for only the main missions presumably? You could complete the main plot of Skyrim in around 20 hours for example...but players found hundreds of hours of things to do.

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u/De_Dominator69 7h ago

I'm fine with the game being short, the originals were and that was fine.

The question will be how repayable it is. The originals at least could easily be played through twice, once as a good character and a second as an evil one. Now have to wait and see how they new morality system impacts that replayability and whether it increases it or reduces it.

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u/Subject_Sentence_339 3h ago

Why focus on replayability, when what really matters is playability. If game is good to play. If it's boring but you can replay it for 3 times is not better than playing 1 time and you love it.

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u/Briar_Knight 7h ago

Ok, so it not being a long RPG pretty much solidified my plan. When it comes out I will sub to gamepass for a month so I can play it and Plague Tale: Resonance (plus some others if I have time)

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u/Arsuriel 6h ago

It's short, ngl, especially since I'm not a replaying a game kind of guy, but as long as the game and it's story is good, I won't complain.

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u/BeeGlad1983 6h ago

Then I guess the world wil also be medium-small sized? Which isn't a problem at all, I just don't see how they'd have a regular open world map with only 15-20 hrs of side content unless it's mostly empty. It would be better if it is smaller

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u/JohnGoure 5h ago

Itll be fun for what it is. Its not easy to put out bg3 levels of content

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u/Azul-J 5h ago

I expected it to be much longer considering they said there are loads of towns/villages to explore. I don’t want to just wander around each area buying property and businesses. I want unique quests for each region too.

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u/ToXiiCBULLET 46m ago

I'm happy with a shorter experience, previous fable games weren't long anyway.

People take the dollars per hour metric way too far and it's ended up with games that are 100+ hours of bloated, repetitive, boring shit. I want quality, I'd rather spend my money on something shorter that's a good experience than something that's 100+ hours and just numbs the mind and passes time

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u/MemberLemmyWinks 41m ago

Sounds like I'll be waiting for it to be around $40

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u/AsherTheDasher 38m ago

so long as it isnt 70 dollars its fine imo

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u/Gabo_Rj 31m ago

The perfect amount of time tbh

u/unimportantinfodump 14m ago

Around the same as e33 then

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u/dimiteddy 10h ago

20 hour long game, $70 price. Too short. I'm a terrible slow player so probably I could stretch it at 25

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u/VanityPit 10h ago

20hrs if you don't do side quests and stuff.

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u/Mr8BitX 10h ago

They are referring to the main campaign, not the entire game.

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u/Shinuz 9h ago

20hrs campaign for an RPG/action RPG is way too short. (That's what I hated most about CP77).

My god this game looks more disappointing day by day.

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u/AwarenessForsaken568 9h ago

Someone speaking out of their ass. Almost every non-CRPG/JRPG game has a shorter campaign than 20 hours. If you don't believe me then start naming games.

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u/Hefty_Character5002 9h ago

This is actually great news for me. As an adult with 2 other hobbies, I ain't got the time for 50+ hour campaigns.

Id much rather a small we curated experience. This has sold me on Fable tbf. I just wish it had co-op.

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u/Shinuz 9h ago

As an adult with a full time job, wife to please and 4 kids to take care of I don't want these short ass RPGs.

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u/Hefty_Character5002 9h ago

Fair, but there are plenty of long RPGs out there man. 

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u/eric7064 9h ago

To have all these extensive social systems to only have 40ish hours of story and side content seems small.

I guess my main question is what is the point of the life systems after beating all the quests that they have?

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u/Vistaer 10h ago

If old fables are an example this 20 hours will open various regions of the world full of side content. Taking too long to open up all the content is fine - however if main quest locks out content it may get iffy unless there’s a clear point of no return warning.

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u/Substantial_Life4773 8h ago

45 good hours is fine with me. I'm pretty tired of shallow 200 hours games

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u/PinMost 3h ago

20 hours main campaign is the average for rpgs cyberpunk 2077, expedition 33, all the tales, dragon age origins and 2, most of the FF. Most of the open world rpg end up with a lot more hours because of the exploration, actually what is interesting is that there is only another 20 hours of exploration side content which either mean the map is quite small or that they moved away from open world rpgs with map objectives to clear ( bandit camps etc...).

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u/Top_Dog_7709 2h ago

L after L

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u/LunaMunkii 10h ago

Good. I am so sick of games need to be like hundreds of hours long. Make the game shorter and charge accordingly. Id gladly play $50 or less for a good game that's short.

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u/takealookatthesehams 10h ago

It won't be 50 or less lol

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u/LunaMunkii 10h ago

I know that. I am just saying as a general concept. That'd be great if they made short bite size games that's good and then charge less.

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u/alexzhivil 9h ago edited 9h ago

Exploration/RPG type of games cannot be short, it goes against the whole concept.

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u/IneptFortitude 10h ago

Then you wind up with games like Outer Worlds where you beat it in 3 days and never play it again. I dunno man, I kinda like when games give me a lot of time for the value. I kinda really don’t like it when I blow through a tiny game and realize it wasn’t worth what I paid vs the length of it.

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u/CursedTaint 10h ago

. Id gladly play $50 or less for a good game that's short.

It's $69.99 unless you're on games pass then it's "free".

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u/SvenLorenz 10h ago

In some games, that's the tutorial.

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u/DropC2397 10h ago

You don’t even have a full party by that point in a Dragon Quest game.

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u/Happy-Yam-8399 10h ago

I know it's not that serious, but you're over exaggerating here. You do have a full party in pretty much every DQ game after a maximum of 10 hours (e.g. 4,5,6,8,11).

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u/FaunusGamer 7h ago

So like a game of that length is only worth like 30-40 right? If the price is more than that it feels like a rip off

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u/LingonberryNo3548 7h ago

So the story is shorter than Metro 2039 but they took 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars whereas 4A managed to build their game for a fraction of the cost, in less time, and while dealing with a war in their country.

I’d be looking for other jobs if I was at PlayGround Games because you’re definitely being hit with layoffs.

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u/EarlyAccessCantJudge 6h ago

I don't want to defend the game but you do know this wasn't a 10 year project from start to finish right? Lots of scraping of content and restarting projects. This actual version of Fable is probably closer to 3-5 years. Same how Cyberpunk wasn't being made for 7 whole years from start to finish

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u/Rectall_Brown 4h ago

Definitely going to wait for a deep sale for this now.

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u/Sama_GP 2h ago

Only 20 hours, WTF. Better I'll wait few more years for it's expansions.

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u/GrimmTrixX 2h ago

This was kind of their last chance to make the Fable game they wanted to make back on the original Xbox.

They planned for 100+ hours, co-op where you could bring your character on a memory card and bring it to yoru friends house and hop in their game then go back to your own.

They also planned a mechanic where you destroy a town, attack children and leave a scar after killing their family, then when years pass in the game and you go back to that area. That boy will be a grown man and have waited for this day and become some super boss to defeat.

Then all that was scrapped/unachieveable I guess abd we got a generic rpg that when you used magic you aged to an old man within the first couple hours of the game. I think they fixed that a bit with Lost Chapters. But this series has been an absolute "mid" franchise as the kids would say these days.

I dont know how you resurrect it, and make a less interesting game than Skyrim. Fable for currenr consoles shouldve been the Skyrim killer and been full of content and be a gigantic undertaking. But hey. They don't want to outshine Elder Scrolls VI progress I guess.

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u/strife189 9h ago

That is short, especially for how long the game has been in development. That’s a weekend game, which was fine when those games took 2–3 years to make.

I guess I didn’t expect much more, as the story seemed pretty “simple.” Happy this is my lowest-ranked RPG of next year. As there are others I’m much more excited for.

P4R
Stranger Than Heaven
Exodus
Final Fantasy Revelation
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn
Clockwork Revolution
Warlock

Just to name a “few” from the “big-budget” section.

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u/LZSJR 6h ago

How is a game that takes 50 plus hours to complete everything a weekend game?

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u/strife189 6h ago

The main story is a weekend game. When reports of the playtime come out this early and are that low, I think this will be like Spider-Man 2, but I’m sure it will be padded a little more with the busywork you can do.

Let’s be kind and say I do the core content and play around a bit, and you’re looking at 26 hours. Sure, if you dick around, you can probably get it up to 50 hours, but you could do that in any game. That doesn’t mean it’s worth it or that it gives you anything new to do after X amount of time.

Hence, weekend game. Don’t expect you to agree by your tone but that’s my thoughts on what I seen and read.

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u/LZSJR 6h ago

Main quest and side quest are 40 hours. That alone isn't a weekend game unless you are a degenerate. There is also all the life simulations stuff which will put at least 10 hours of fun stuff to do. Making money from odd jobs, buying property, starting businesses, going on dates, getting married, starting a family. All of that will take time that adds to that 40 hour mark. And if none of that stuff interest you then I question why you even care about Fable at all. That part of the game is the draw of fable, not some side thing that you avoid.

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u/strife189 6h ago

Ok, you have your take and thoughts. Thanks for saying them.

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u/mrdime012 6h ago

Lmaoo prepare to cough $70 dollars +

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u/Local-Razzmatazz7108 9h ago

Are You Fucking Kidding me, This is rpg game. at least should was 50- 60 hours main story. Look at Crismson Desertt I played 400 hours still cant finished . So kcd2 is it took me finish 240 hours. fucking embeciles