People tell me it’s summer, but it’s clearly not. The last two days have been great but other than those we have just seen rain, wind and just overall unpleasant weather. Undoubtedly this is for Fable 2 development, as we’re all spending time inside rather than out in the sun, with a refreshing beer. What a bummer!

My previous community update dates back to April 2007, but in the meantime you have seen two Lionhead Video Diaries focusing on the Fable 2 team (Love and Combat), with a third one coming in October. How are the Fable 2 team faring? Pretty it seems to me. On the game play side for example, secondary motion is being added to the game, so now the hero's weapons start bouncing around and behave more realistically. Children are also being worked on; they will now start mimicking the hero if the hero's famous enough! The game is really starting to come together nicely, but don’t let this fool you, there is still a way to go for everyone involved. 

It’s nowhere near finished. Think about that for a second. It is not finished. So yes, the game will look at least a gazillion times better than anything you’ve seen of Fable 2 so far. Anyone doubting that for a split second deserves a kick in the butt. Compared to some other games, Fable 2 is graphically going to be a Masterpiece. We are talking about vast and expansive outdoor locations, with added night and day cycle with realistic lighting effects that dynamically change the environment around you. There will be uber-detailed textures and lighting on up to fifty character models on screen, all of which will cast a dynamic shadow of themselves on that same environment and the same goes for any object in the world. There is a physics engine, a simulation engine and about a thousand years of knowledge of things that I’m not even trying to understand. According to our water-expert Fran “we are going to kick Bioshock’s water!” He gets a little excited sometimes; Italian passion! But the game will look Great.

And now for the company line: “THIS IS GOING TO BE THE GREATEST GAME OF ALL TIME”. Heh...it does work as a great motivator for some though, as do the people posting on our forums and the work experience guys we get in each week. Kiernan and Nathan, who are in charge of our testing department, dedicated a whole wall to drawings and letters from the weekly testers that come in. Our testing department is a room full of big TV’s, Xbox’ and computers. With a lot of football memorabilia on the wall and whiteboards with lists of bugs, leader-boards for the programmers and the letters and art by the work experience, this place is really a hot spot. It’s also a great place to find out how the game is doing, as they play the game each day and can give you the latest and greatest. If something doesn’t work, these guys get the hammer out and stalk programmers until it’s fixed.

There is another very big milestone coming up, this one is one of the bigger ones. The whole design team, Peter included, are now practically fleshing out the final bits left and right. This fine-tuning is obviously a slow process and will go on for some time, as it is now an important part of our development process.

Video Diary 3 is now also in full swing! I’ve done some filming earlier in the month because of our 10th anniversary celebrations, and this week we’ve been interviewing developers from our Central Technology Group (CTG). It’s time to bring Episode One and Two together and explain what kind of glue holds “Love” and “Combat” together at Lionhead Studios for Fable 2. The third one will be ‘And now for Something Completely Different’.

Before I forget, there is some new Fable 2 concept art. You can find it in this community update or just check out this page.

Oh and don’t let our Italian developer fool you; Bioshock is amazing.