Gamers might have just got their first look at the next gen Fable and Forza Horizon, thanks to concept artists at Playground Games.
Officially Microsoft has not announced a new Fable game and has said nothing about Forza Horizon developer Playground Games working on a new entry, but they are – everybody knows it – and Phil Spencer even tacitly acknowledged the fact back at E3 in June.
But without an official announcement we don’t know whether the game is a sequel or reboot or what kind of setting it might have, since the original games moved from medieval fantasy through to the cusp of an industrial revolution.
The artwork you see here was found by Twitter fan Klobrille and one image in particular seems to be a purposeful recreation of the village from the first Fable.
10 months ago, Vaigintas Pakenis uploaded these concept arts inspired by Fable and Forza Horizon Japan Style to ArtStation. In January 2019 he started his journey as a Concept Artist at Playground Games. It’s a funny coincidence given what people expect both PG teams to work on. pic.twitter.com/k67jJmNsJt
— Klobrille (@klobrille) April 9, 2019
However, the image was uploaded to ArtStation 10 months ago by Playground Games artist Vaigintas Pakenis, before they were hired.
That means they’re little more than fan art, but the discovery also turned up the following artwork from fellow Playground Games artist Rodrigo Idalino, which includes photo references from the 16th century.
Uploading concept art like this to ArtStation and similar sites is a mistake other artists have made before, and the fact that they’ve suddenly been deleted tells its own story.
It is only concept though, so there’s no guarantee it looks like the final product or that plans about the setting and art style haven’t completely changed since then.
The other concept art is for what is presumably Forza Horizon 5, with what seems to be an Asian setting. Concept art with a Hong Kong setting was also leaked last year, when it was assumed to be for Forza Horizon 4 – but that turned out to be set in the UK.
Whether that means that Hong Kong was dropped or the artwork was always for Forza Horizon 5 isn’t clear but given what’s going on in Hong Kong at the moment it doesn’t seem like a setting Microsoft would go for right now.
The newer concept art doesn’t seem to have anything to specifically tie it to Hong Kong so it’s possible the setting could’ve been changed. But given the series’ critical and commercial success Forza Horizon 5 is clearly a certainty at some point.
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