Fable 3 will be tougher and less buggy on PC

Fable 3 will finally be getting a PC release soon. Lionhead have been talking about the changes they've been making to the game to get the PC port of Fable 3 just right. We can expect proper mouse support, increased difficulty, and less item gathering for collection quests. Many of the bugs that were found in the console versions of the game have also been squashed ahead of the game's release next month.

Speaking to RPS , Fable 3 lead designer Josh Atkins admits that the game was designed to be easy for a console audience. "On Fable from the beginning I can remember sitting in a room with Peter [Molyneux] and him being very explicit with me that... I believe the direct quote, if I remember correctly, was, 'I want a blind child to be able to win this game with their feet."

Atkins says that their approach to the PC version is different. "When the difficulty came up we were talking about what would PC players want. What would be important to them? The additional challenge, or the choice for additional challenge was something that we thought was important.

"Figuring out how to do that in a way that was both efficient and fair was challenging. We didn't just move sliders around: we actually sat down and looked at the creature types and looked at them as individuals. Rather than just say, "This one now does 10 per cent more damage," we made them a little faster, which gives them the perception of being a little bit smarter."

Other changes to the original game include mouse support that will let you click on objects in the environment and tweaks to collection quest designed to remove the grind from gathering quests.

"Our hope is that people who pick up [Fable III] on PC think, 'Okay, this plays how I would expect it to play, it doesn't play like a half-done port,' which is the danger for PC games," says Atkins. "Not to knock anyone else, but people tend to just rush games out onto the PC; they do the very quickest port they can and they try to do it as a financial model rather than let's try to make something that at least plays like it was designed for this platform, and respects what the platform does."

Fable 3 is out on May 17 in the US and May 20 in Europe. For more on the game check out the official Fable 3 site , and have a read of our Fable 3 preview .