Fable dev responds to doubters: Xbox Showcase reveal was the game captured on Xbox Series X

Yes, you read that right. Fable, which returned from the dead with a killer look at gameplay, and a teaser for its narrative at the Xbox Showcase, left many wondering how much of what we saw was real.

In a world of many, often conflicting terms, that are poorly explained, people are becoming more cynical of what's being shown. In-engine, in-game, CG, real-time in-engine are all phrases that seem to be thrown around to avoid saying whether we're looking at actual gameplay.

But in Fable's case, at least, that was the actual game running on Xbox Series X hardware. Xbox head Phil Spencer actually briefly touched on this during his interview with Giant Bomb. Indeed, the footage starts with a cool "in-game footage" in the lower third.

And yet, not everyone took Playground at its word, even if some of the behind-the-back sections look like something you can be doing in an action game. Lukas Koelz, lead lighting artist at Fable developer Playground Games, said people questioning how real the game looks has been "one of the best compliments."

The artist shared a few direct-feed screenshots on Twitter, later adding that everything was captured on Xbox Series X. Unsurprisingly, the game is using Playground's own Forzatech, the same one Forza Horizon games have been built on for years. This is another thing Koelz was keen to point out after someone suggested the looks are the result of using Unreal Engine 5.

While it's great to see this confirmed, many likely won't be convinced until they see some raw gameplay with the HUD on, like the 45 minutes Bethesda spent detailing Starfield's systems, and gameplay. It helps, of course, that Starfield is only a few weeks away from launch, while Fable does not have a release target, let alone date.