Update: Fable and Perfect Dark Twitter accounts are apparently not worth getting our hopes up over

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Original story: As spotted by eagle-eyed folk on social media, two of Microsoft's currently defunct series, Fable and Perfect Dark, both have placeholder Twitter accounts. One was registered in March and the other in June. Digging further, one of the protected accounts has a Microsoft employee as its sole follower.

I’m not sure who discovered the @fable and @PerfectDarkGame placeholders, but a Microsoft Xbox employee is following one, and the other is registered to a Microsoft email address 👀 pic.twitter.com/MagqUbPiZfJune 27, 2020

Of course, this doesn't mean much on its own. But Microsoft's next replacement-for-E3 online conference is scheduled for July, and since the last one revealed Assassin's Creed Valhalla and confirmed the PC version of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, as well as showing more of Bloodlines 2, Dirt 5, Madden NFL 21, Scorn, and several other games, we're expecting at least a couple of big announcements. And revivals of popular games coming to Xbox Series X and Windows 10 would certainly be that.

While Fable's original studio Lionhead no longer exists, Playground Games are rumored to have been working on a new Fable game for at least the last couple of years. Though Microsoft didn't mention Fable at E3 2019, head of Microsoft Game Studios Matt Booty did say that they were holding some things back for 2020.

Perfect Dark, an FPS series developed by Rare, has never been on PC before and it sure would be nice to see either a port of the originals or a sequel. Of the two it does seem less likely, however, given the lack of rumors or leaks relating to it. Right now it's all just speculation, though.

Update: Aaron Greenberg, general manager at Xbox Games Marketing, responded to say, "These accounts have been inactive for years, it’s standard practice to secure social handles for our IP." Which sure is a downer.

While readers with their conspiracy hats on have been quick to point out these accounts were only registered in 2020, the owner of the Perfect Dark account turns out to just be a fan who registered it after seeing the @fable account existed. So while there's still perhaps a shred of a reason to suspect the Playground Games rumor is true, anything happening with Perfect Dark seems even more unlikely than it did before.

I know everyone is hungry for news, but sorry to get your hopes up. These accounts have been inactive for years, it’s standard practice to secure social handles for our IP.June 28, 2020

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.