Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Fable 4's narrative lead announces departure
Anna Megill is leaving Playground next month
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Fable's Narrative Lead Announces Departure
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- Social Game Dev
systemr123
Banned
Fable 4's narrative lead announces departure
Anna Megill is leaving Playground next monthwww.gamesradar.com
Yep, she fired
Kenneth Haight
Gold Member
I wrote TWO books, y’all
Maybe you should have focused on making ONE game
Maybe you should have focused on making ONE game
ConcealedBlaze
Member
Oh damn. She was the narrative lead on Control. I’ll have to keep an eye out on impressions of Fable then.
Also sounds like she tends to operate primarily as a gig worker and the reason she’s leaving is the narrative work is at a good point with Fable (from her follow-up tweet) and now she wants to do something else. Having known a few people that work as free-lancers it doesn’t seem like a particularly strange thing for her to do.
Also sounds like she tends to operate primarily as a gig worker and the reason she’s leaving is the narrative work is at a good point with Fable (from her follow-up tweet) and now she wants to do something else. Having known a few people that work as free-lancers it doesn’t seem like a particularly strange thing for her to do.
Last edited:
TIGERCOOL
Member
a quick scroll through her twitter tells me everything I need to know. she was fired, likely has always been unqualified for the position. when the going gets tough virtue hires quickly become untenable business propositions. funny watching Hollywood and the gaming industry scrambling to climb out of the massive hole they've been smugly digging for nearly a decade. get fucked.
Interfectum
Member
The Infectious Paradox
Gold Member
Fable is starting to seems more like Fib if you catch my drift.
ConcealedBlaze
Member
She was the narrative lead on Control (and worked in plenty of other games). Seems unlikely she was a virtue hire given that resume
TIGERCOOL
Member
Control's creative director was Sam Lake, writer of Max Payne and Alan Wake. It's his brainchild, and his fingerprints are all over that story.
Last edited:
phant0m
Member
if you're the narrative director on a game that's still pretty far from release, it is not the "right" time to move on. you were either shown the door or you think the rest of your team is so incompetent you don't want to be associated with whatever the final product is looking like.
my bet is on the former.
my bet is on the former.
ConcealedBlaze
Member
Sure, but that is still a excellent thing to have on your resume. It makes more sense they hired her for that experience (and experience in games like Dishonored DOTO) than that she was some token hire. Also most of her Twitter is narrative game design stuff so it seems like she’s pretty highly engrained into that field. This isn’t just some random woman that they hired.
Silent Viper
Banned
She replaced. She not the only one in team
Silent Viper
Banned
This is anti Xbox article. So we have to post it on gaf to turn this into conspiracy theory.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
kvltus lvlzvs
Member
Really? Thats awesome. I had no idea. Havent played it but the aesthetics are really cool.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Loved control, interested to see how they work the magic on Fable.
Also, your second paragraph won't work with the narrative that will quite probably form in this thread...
Hehe
The Pleasure
Gold Member
Syphon Filter
Member
dam damage control here already on the first page. 
TIGERCOOL
Member
I have no doubt that she was hired for the narrative lead role with Fable because of her resume. That resume was likely misleading. When Sam Lake is the CD the narrative lead position is essentially superfluous, probably filling in dialogue for his story beats and coordinating other writers to do the same. It's basically a management position. Her jumping ship from Remedy was telling, and now "stepping down" from her position on Fable makes for an awful lot of smoke.
edit: to elaborate a bit, from experience, these types of hires are not selected at random. They are often competent (usually unremarkably so), but the nature of this vetting for "under-represented" individuals at every level means they are granted positions and opportinunities above their capabilities and level of experience. I also don't think it's her fault.
Last edited:
ConcealedBlaze
Member
Yeah apparently the only two options are that Fable is doomed or she was fired. No possibility she just wanted to do something else after like 3 years. Honestly this stuff is becoming more and more common in games as development times stretch out into 4+ years.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Fuz
Banned
Ok (and again, not talking specifically about her, it just came up to me after seeing Major Nelson too), but - and maybe it's just my knowledge limited so correct me if I'm wrong - I don't see it from any other entertainment industry. You'd think TV and movies hires would do the same.
Jack Videogames
Member
When the main responsible for the story bails mid development is generally THE worst possible sign
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
ChorizoPicozo
Member
xbox's track record strikes again.
Robbinhood
Banned
I don't know if thats cause for concern but...this game was revealed years ago and all we got was 1 second of gameplay and not even a release YEAR. 2024 if we lucky.
FH is a racing game and has mediocre racing so I'm hoping they can transition genres and stay focused.
FH is a racing game and has mediocre racing so I'm hoping they can transition genres and stay focused.
Calverz
Member
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Forza Horizon is the best arcade open world racing franchise on the market, and FH5 is probably the best first party game Xbox has released in years.
Robbinhood
Banned
I disagree, well the competition has thinned out but the racing almost takes a back seat to the "exploring" and driving through fields. I put 6-10 hours I'm not sure but I bailed after that. Nothing will top the PGR series for me.
Btw "open world racer" is the worst genre. Just give me great tracks, the rest is a waste of time.
Last edited:
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
I'll respectfully agree to disagree.
I've put 100+ hours into it and it's probably the most fun I've had with an arcade racing game since FH3. I just love the sandbox and all the mindless shit that you can do in it, plus all the cars you can collect and fool around with. Anyway, it's kinda offtopic so I'll leave it at that. 
Kurotri
Member
Xsisters...it's over for us AGAIN!
In all honesty I don't think there's much we can take away from this "news". Personally I liked what they seem to wanna do with their vision and it's Playground Games, they know that it needs to hit like Starfield as Fable is one of the biggest pillars Microsoft can have, so I'll stay optimistic until there's something more substantial.
In all honesty I don't think there's much we can take away from this "news". Personally I liked what they seem to wanna do with their vision and it's Playground Games, they know that it needs to hit like Starfield as Fable is one of the biggest pillars Microsoft can have, so I'll stay optimistic until there's something more substantial.
March Climber
Member
No damage control from my end as I'm honestly a bit confused as to the replies here. There's two ways to look at this.dam damage control here already on the first page.
Scenario A: She was fired.
Scenario B: Her writing work was already laid out and done, and she has been there doing nothing but getting a free paycheck from Microsoft and writing books on the side since that moment. She has decided to leave due to this.
For some reason, due to the very little amount of context given, many here have already decided that Scenario A is the only possible outcome.
TropicanaTwista
Member
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
You do realise that she's a woman and therefore some people on this forum will fail to see any value in her work ever.
Umbasaborne
Banned
What a great sign for a game that they could barely show gameplay for after so many years
BosmerCulter
Member
To be fair, she not the Narrative Director. The Narrative Director of Fable is Martin Lancaster, former lead scriptwriter from Rocksteady on Arkham Knight. He's been working on the game since 2018, i think he is more the "leader" of all the story and writing part of Fable.
Still not a good sign.
Last edited: