inglorious

Wired had a article covering Peter Molynuex’s revealing at X10 today. The article unveiled some interesting things for Lionhead‘s upcoming Fable 3. Including a revelation that Molyneux believes will anger players. The article explains:

In a video interview earlier this month, Molyneux said players would be “pissed” to hear about one of Fable III’s features. What’s the scoop? There’s no health bar, he said. In fact, there’s no heads-up display elements on the screen at all.

“Look at the screen!” Molyneux gushed, gesturing at the monitor like Vanna White. “It’s completely clean! Why do we need the fucking health bar?”

Instead of having a bar to show the player’s remaining health, Fable III will take cues from action games, not RPGs, and have environmental graphic changes that show that you’re close to death.

What, I asked, about other such menus and gauges?

“The 2-D parts of Fable 1 and Fable 2 were rubbish,” he responded. “That’s why people didn’t change their clothes, or change their weapons.” In Fable 3, he said, he’s looking to make that character-customization busywork “part of the game.”

In an interview earlier this week with Matt Peckham from PCWorld, Molyneux was quoted as saying: “I’m really scared that when I go out and tell people what it is, they’re going to get super pissed off. They really are. But it’s the right thing to do man, I’m sure it’s the right thing to do.”

This is twice where he describes a fan base getting angry over the removal of traditional HUD elements. I don’t get it. I’m not sure why he fears this choice will cause some sort of backlash from players. It’s become a staple for Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty series. I’ve brought it up twice where it was tackled by EA Sport’s Fight Night and again when Double Fine took a similar direction with Brutal Legend. If you can pull it off well, a player won’t notice. Simple as that. If you do a poor job, they’ll complain. Trying to drum up drama where there isn’t any seems silly.

You can read more over at Wired.