One of the biggest stories to emerge out of this week's Xbox Developer Direct was the long-awaited update about the new Fable reboot. It's been 15 years since Fable 3 wrapped up the original trilogy, but one of the franchise's key features won't be returning in the new game.

In the first three Fable games, the physical appearance of player characters changed depending on their moral alignment. This was called "morphing," and players who were particularly bad took on a devilish appearance complete with horns. According to Fable general manager and director Ralph Fulton, that won't be the case in the new game.

"That sort of character morphing feature--obviously a really central part of the original games--it's not in ours," Fulton told IGN. "There is no objective good and evil. And the original games were predicated on there being an objective good and an objective evil, and you were somewhere along that scale, and that's what determined how your appearance changed. But for us, that doesn't really work. The way I've described our morality system working, you're never that thing, absolutely. You're different things to different people based on what they like or what they choose to value. So, that's one reason that it didn't work."

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The original Fable trilogy gave players a choice between actions that were defined as either good or evil. Playground Games' Fable reboot is retaining a morality system, but it's not going to be quite so simple and binary. Instead, players will be able to have more nuanced characters who may not necessarily be either good or evil.

"Morality was always such an important part of the original trilogy," said Fable general manager and director Ralph Fulton during an interview with Xbox Wire. "I think that original trilogy is inextricably linked with the concept of good and evil--but I think morality in video games has moved on in the intervening period. How we think about morality in the world today has really informed how we wanted to represent it as a game system in this game. That’s to say: There is no objective good, there is no objective evil. Really it's just about people's subjective opinions and what they choose to value in someone else when they make that judgment."

Fulton went on to explain that the new Fable's morality "isn't a sliding scale." Instead, players will be judged by their actions if they're spotted by at least one other character. He added that players may gain significantly different reputations at each town based on what they've become known for.

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Playground's new Fable game will have an "amazing cast," game director Ralph Fulton has said. In an interview, Fulton teased that the new Fable game will carry forward the franchise's tradition of working with popular actors, though he didn't name anyone outright as of yet.

"We have an amazing cast in this game--and we'll talk more about the cast in future," he said in an interview with Xbox. "Again, that's in keeping with the original Fable games."

He said the casting for the earlier Fable games from Lionhead was so strong that it felt like a "challenge" for Playground to live up.

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The new Fable game from Playground Games is coming to PlayStation 5, and that's a big deal because the series has never landed on a Sony system. Playground's other big game for 2026, Forza Horizon 6, is also landing on PS5 following the huge success of Forza Horizon 5 on PS5. The new Fable is landing on PS5 alongside the Xbox and PC editions, but Forza Horizon 6 won't come to PS5 until some point after it releases on Xbox and PC. Why is that?

Fable game director Ralph Fulton told IGN that, "Every project team is deciding these things; deciding what's right for their particular title."

He elaborated: "We have two projects which have made slightly different decisions, although the endpoint is the same. And I think as a game developer, the most important thing to me is that the greatest number of people play my games as possible."

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During Xbox's Developer Direct, Forza Horizon developer Playground Games more fully showed off its Fable reboot. The game's visuals are impressive, but the real achievement of the dev team may be the open world and people who live in it. According to Playground Games, there are over 1,000 NPCs in Fable, and players can talk to and interact with all of them.

"You can talk to them, you can romance them, you can marry them," said Fable general manager Ralph Fulton. "You can divorce them or be divorced by them. You can have children with them. You can hire them. You can fire them. [NPCs] are kind of a game within a game, but they are such a unique, fundamental part of Fable. And I think one of the things that sets Fable apart from other open-world medieval fantasy RPGs is that it was uncuttable. We knew we had to deliver against this. I love that we've stuck with the ambition that we had right at the start of that."

As part of the developers' stated goal to include so many NPCs, Fulton added that each person has their own daily routine that they follow, as well as their own place to live and sleep. Furthermore, Fulton revealed that every single building in Fable can be entered and explored by the player. In fact, players can even purchase buildings and homes of their own.

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A new Fable game is coming this year from developer Playground. It's the first new entry in the series following the closure of original developer Lionhead and the departure of series director Peter Molyneux from Microsoft.

Playground is not trying to "ape" anything that Lionhead did, game director Ralph Fulton said in an interview. Instead, the developer said it was important for the new game to be a reboot so Playground could put its own stamp on Fable--while retaining elements of the original games, like morality and kicking chickens.

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The Fable series is known for a lot of things, including the ability to kick chickens and send them soaring through the air. The new Fable, from developer Playground, will continue to allow you to do this, it was confirmed as part of Xbox Developer Direct.

In an interview with Xbox, game director Ralph Fulton said if NPCs in the world see you kicking chickens, you'll begin to earn a reputation as a "Chicken Chaser." If enough people witness you kicking chickens, or if you just do it a lot, your reputation in a given settlement will be that you're a person who likes to kick chickens. "People will react to you based on what they think about that particular reputation," Fulton said.

However, different people will take this reputation to mean different things. "Kicking chickens isn't objectively good or objectively evil in a way everybody will agree on," Fulton said. "It comes down to the unique worldview of the NPC [and] what they think of you because of it."

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After last year's critically acclaimed sleeper Keeper, Double Fine is coming back with a new take on an older game. During the Xbox Developer Direct, Double Fine officially unveiled Kiln, a title where players will be able to make unique pottery warriors and send them into battle against each other.

During the much-longer look at Kiln from the Xbox Developer Direct, it was clear that the vase creation has a lot of options for players to shape their warriors and guide their destructive destinies. However, you won't need to be a pottery master to realize your clay visions in this game.

"Making pots in real life is really difficult," said project lead Derek Brand during an interview with Xbox Wire. "It takes a lot of practice, and you can get good at it over time, but it is not an easy thing to just jump into. We wanted to make the pot-making super easy and accessible--it's just a button and a control stick--and you can make any kind of shape you wanted. We wanted people to immediately feel like they're masters at this craft."

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The new Fable game that Microsoft showed off during the Xbox Developer Direct takes inspiration from an unlikely source: the popular TV show The Office.

Game director Ralph Fulton said in an interview with Xbox that British humor "manifests in lots of different ways throughout the game." The team at Playground, which is based in England, was inspired by the "rich variety of British comedies" of the past two decades, including Ricky Gervais' The Office, as well as Peep Show, The IT Crowd, and others.

"We started with The Office, which again started out as quintessentially British, but also travels really, really well," he said, no doubt referencing the American version that elevated the series to new heights. "Not just that IP, but a lot of the techniques and the devices that it’s popularized, you know. It’s that really grounded, awkward style of humor which really appeals to us."

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Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and Essential subscribers can start the weekend a little early, because the next Free Play Days event begins today, January 22 and goes through Sunday, January 25. One of the four games available to players is South Park: Snow Day!, which seems appropriate given the cold weather sweeping much of the US.

South Park: Snow Day!

Snow Day! is a four-player co-op title that casts players as the new kid in town opposite Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny. A blizzard has blown through South Park, and set the boys off into a fantasy realm of adventure where they get to battle it out to save the world. Or at least some of the world, since they won't be leaving South Park any time soon.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

As the name implies, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is an origin story for the world's greatest non-Batman detective. But he hasn't hit his peak of deduction yet. This game puts players in control of a much younger Sherlock as he attempts to unravel the events surrounding the sudden death of his mother.

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Following the reveal of its release date, Marathon has seen a surge of interest as PC players have begun locking in preorders for Bungie's sci-fi extraction shooter. At the time of writing, Marathon is the fifth-best-selling game on Steam in the US and 10th globally on the Steam Charts. Free-to-play games like Marvel Rivals and Counter-Strike 2 are ahead of it--only natural, given the low price of nothing for those titles--and Arc Raiders is still in the top spot for now.

This is a positive step forward for the game, considering last year's controversy over alleged stolen art assets and the lukewarm reception since its reveal. It's also worth noting that Marathon will be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S at launch, but sales data for those platforms isn't currently available to gauge player interest. Marathon was originally aiming to launch in September last year--a release date that would have brought it perilously close to the mega-successful Arc Raiders.

It's now scheduled to launch on March 5, which gives it a fairly comfortable window to make its sales mark. The Steam preorders suggest it'll launch on PC with considerable momentum, but it remains to be seen whether it'll be able to hold onto its players in the highly competitive live-service games market.

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World of Warcraft lead producer Raymond Bartos has left Blizzard to join Riot, where he will work on the League of Legends developer's upcoming MMO.

Bartos said, "I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to join such an inspiring group of people, and I can't wait to get started." Serving as a senior game producer, Bartos said his job will be to "help deliver an MMO experience players truly enjoy."

Additionally, Bartos said he's excited to join another former WoW developer, Orlando Salvatore, at Riot. "Given our track record on World of Warcraft, I have a feeling we'll be moving fast on day one," Bartos said.

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For the first time in series history, the Halo franchise will be playable on PlayStation this year with the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved. Executive producer Damon Conn said in an interview that Microsoft's goal is to "bring players back together."

"There are people who have never been exposed to Halo. Maybe they've always been on Sony products, switched consoles at a certain point, or just missed it at the time. We want to bring players back together," Conn explained to GamesRadar.

Creative director Max Szlagor added that, "Halo is best played when we have a large, healthy community."

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Marathon Limited Edition DualSense Controller

$85 | Releases March 5

Preorder at PlayStation Direct

Bungie has announced the release date for Marathon, and fans can also preorder a new DualSense controller inspired by the extraction shooter. The $85 Marathon Limited Edition DualSense for PS5 is set to launch on March 5, the same day as the game, and preorders will open on January 29 on the PlayStation Store.

Marathon Limited Edition DualSense Controller $85 | Releases March 5

The Marathon DualSense controller has a very distinctive aesthetic that ties into the game's sci-fi themes and graphic design. Created in close collaboration with the team at Bungie, the studio says it aimed to make the peripheral look like something that could naturally exist alongside other objects in Marathon.

The end result is a DualSense controller full of clean lines, purposeful markings, and vivid accents that has a futuristic look.

Preorder at PlayStation Direct Marathon DualSense controllerGallery

You can also pick up other DualSense Controllers, including Limited Editions, through PlayStation Direct and major retailers. They all feature attention-grabbing designs tied to their respective video games, like Genshin Impact, God of War, and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

For something even flashier, you can also check out the upcoming line of HyperPop limited-edition PS5 console covers and DualSense controllers.

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Bungie is best-known for its work on Halo and Destiny, but before it made its mark on those franchises, the studio was building the grand sci-fi saga of Marathon. Decades later, Marathon is making its grand return as a multiplayer-focused extraction shooter that aims to combine Bungie's signature gunplay with a vibrant art direction.

Ahead of its launch in March, we've gathered up all the pertinent information on the game, and you can read up to see how Marathon is shaping up.

Table of Contents [hide]

• When will Marathon be released?

When will Marathon be released?One of the Runners off Marathon

Marathon will launch on March 5, 2026. The game was originally scheduled to be released on September 23, 2025, but was delayed so Bungie could spend more time fine-tuning the game and addressing feedback from players who participated in early alpha versions.

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In the lead up to its release on March 5, Bungie has revealed the full voice cast for Marathon--and it is stacked. Featuring fan-favorites from recent hits like Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur, TV sci-fi stars, and other notable gaming voices, Bungie is clearly going all-in on Marathon's voice acting.

In a blog post, Bungie revealed the 33 names that make up the English voice cast for Marathon, many of them instantly recognisable for fans of games and sci-fi. The list includes the voices of some of our favorite Baldur's Gate 3 companions including Jennifer English (Shadowheart), Neil Newbon (Astarion), Samantha Béart (Karlach), and Tracy Wiles (Jaheira). Also from the realm of RPGs are Ben Starr and Rich Keeble, who lent their voices to Verso and Monoco respectively in Clair Obscur.

Announcing Marathon's English voice cast. Marathon releases March 5, 2026 and is available for pre-order now. pic.twitter.com/ehBsQbNRMA

— Marathon (@MarathonTheGame) January 19, 2026

Sci-fi fans might recognise Nika Futterman, who voiced Asajj Ventress in the Clone Wars animated series, as well as Elias Toufexis, the voice of Adam Jensen in the Deus Ex series, who later broke into TV sci-fi with roles in The Expanse and Star Trek: Discovery. Some other notable names include Roger Clark who plays Arthur Morgan in Red Dead 2, Morla Gorrondona who plays Eris Morn in Destiny 2, and Erin Yvette, who has appeared in Dispatch, The Wolf Among Us, Hades 2, and more.

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Bungie announced this week that its new extraction shooter Marathon will release on March 5, and also revealed some other important pre-release information--including a set of updated system requirements.

While Bungie released PC specs for Marathon ahead of the game's first closed alpha last year, it only gave the minimum system requirements. Those haven't changed ahead of Marathon's full release, but we now also have a set of recommended specs to size up against.

Marathon PC SpecsMinimum

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-6600 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (4 GB) / Intel Arc A580 (8 GB, with ReBAR on)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

Recommended

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-10400 / AMD Ryzen 5 3500
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2060 (6 GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8 GB) / Intel Arc A770 (16 GB, with ReBAR on)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

While the current set of specs doesn't specify a target frame rate or resolution, it shouldn't be hard for most decent rigs to get a good experience out of Marathon. With reasonable minimum specs, even those with older or less powerful PCs should be able to manage the game on lower settings, too. The specs currently don't say how much system storage will be required to install Marathon, another detail which will likely come closer to release.

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After years out of the Hollywood spotlight, The Mummy and The Whale actor Brendan Fraser has made a huge comeback. The actor has new film roles lined up, but right now, his most pressing concern is avoiding getting steamrolled by the notorious Lynel mini-bosses in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

In an interview, Fraser was asked whether he was playing any video games, and he explained that he was "still stuck" on the critically acclaimed 2017 Zelda game. "I want to know how to get better weapons without getting my ass kicked by all the Lynels," Fraser said to IGN, while also lamenting that there simply aren't enough bomb-flowers in the game. While his interviewer suggested he consult online guides, Fraser responded that he was looking to beat the game the old-fashioned way, without relying on walkthroughs.

The next film that Fraser will appear in, Pressure, will see him portray Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the key leaders of the Allied forces during World War 2 and the 34th US President who served from 1953-61. The actor also announced last year that he would reprise his role as Rick O'Connell in the fourth Mummy movie.

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Marvel Rivals introduced an upgrade to its hero proficiency system last week, allowing players to earn new rewards. Many of these rewards--including the brag-worthy Lord icons--require a considerable amount of grinding to achieve, which has led to the rise of "Lord farming" amongst the playerbase.

Essentially, players aren't moving after they spawn into a match, as they spam their abilities to earn proficiency points safely. This has led to some very one-sided matches, and developer NetEase says it'll address this problem in a future update. There's no date yet for when this update will go live, but players can expect some severe penalties if they're caught farming stats this way.

"Recently, we've noticed that some players are exploiting matches by remaining stationary and repeatedly farming stats to gain hero proficiency points," NetEase wrote online. "This behavior disrupts normal gameplay and seriously affects the match experience of other players. To address this, we are planning to introduce a combat behavior detection system. Players found engaging in such behavior may face penalties including, but not limited to: warnings, short-term suspensions, long-term suspensions, or permanent account bans. We ask all players to help us maintain a fair and healthy game environment."

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Bungie's long in development extraction shooter, Marathon, will launch on March 5, a new gameplay trailer has revealed ahead of preorders opening. It will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC and cost $40.

The trailer introduces players again to Tau Ceti IV, a colony that you, playing as runners, will infiltrate to dispatch armed forces and extract with valuable gear. You'll make use of a variety of Runner Shells that give you different abilities and perks, defining your role in a party or giving you a choice over how to build if you're planning to play solo. The art style remains as striking as ever, with Bungie's signature gunplay being showcased in the action below.

Marathon was initially scheduled to launch on September 23, 2025 before being indefinitely delayed following a series of public tests that drew criticisms over the game's mechanics. Bungie noted key areas that it planned to improve with more development time, namely the game's survival elements, its lore and world building, and better social experiences for solo and duos players.

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