Fable

Fable came out in 2004 from the British studio Lionhead Studios under Peter Molyneux, pitched as an action RPG whose world would react to the player's behaviour — act like a hero in Albion and you'd slowly gain a halo and the villagers' admiration; steal and kill innocents instead, and you'd sprout horns and a dark aura. The game arrived under a mountain of pre-release promises, from acorns that would grow into full trees to a world that remembered every choice; the finished product was more modest, but its humour, distinctive visual style and blend of melee, magic and archery combat still made it one of the defining games on the original Xbox. A year later, Fable: The Lost Chapters brought an expanded version to PC, with a new ending and extra content.

Fable II (2008) moved the series to Xbox 360 and added a dog companion, two-player co-op, property and business ownership, and a more elaborate morality system that this time genuinely showed on the character's appearance and in how the world reacted. Many players and critics regard this second entry as the series' peak, blending humour, emotional beats and freedom of play more successfully than any other installment. Fable III (2010) picked up the story with the overthrow of a tyrant king and the player's own rule over Albion afterward, adding kingdom management and its knock-on effects on the population — but it landed to a cooler reception than Fable II, mainly over its simplified inventory and controls.

After Fable III the series veered away from classic RPG territory: Fable: The Journey (2012) was a linear, Kinect-controlled rail shooter, and Fable Heroes, the same year, offered a cooperative arcade brawler styled like a dungeon crawler using the series' characters — both spin-offs were received coolly and signalled that Lionhead was searching for a new direction for the brand. Fable Anniversary (2014) turned back from experimentation to the source instead, remastering the original game for Xbox 360 with upgraded visuals, serving as a reminder of where the series began on the original Xbox. Despite the uneven quality across entries, Fable remains one of the games that helped define the console action-RPG-with-morality-system in the mid-2000s, helped along by a distinctly British sense of humour that set it apart from more po-faced rivals.