Fable Co-Creator Admits He Ripped Off Devil May Cry
One of Fable's co-creators took to Twitter to express just how important pinching ideas from other games is to game development.
16th Nov 2022 15:05
Xbox Game Studios | Capcom
Fable Co-Creator Admits He Ripped Off Devil May Cry
One of Fable's co-creators took to Twitter to express just how important pinching ideas from other games is to game development.
16th Nov 2022 15:05
Xbox Game Studios | Capcom
Nothing is truly original anymore, right? Though we have consistent music world lawsuits that make vague attempts to prove the opposite, it's safe to assume that all creators are influenced by their surroundings in the art they create.
This applies to musicians, filmmakers, or even game devs. We've played a lot of Metroidvania and FromSoftware clones over the years, and it seems as though it grows more true by the year
A collaborative attitude has seemingly been adopted by an industry veteran, too, as he admits that he completely ripped off a different game for his own.
How Did Devil May Cry Influence Fable?
One of the co-creators of the Fable series has come forward to offer budding game-devs advice on how they can make the game of their dreams. However, there's a certain shamelessness about one of his tactics.
In a long Twitter thread, Dene Carter explains that a great deal of inspiration for Fable came from Devil May Cry - in a much more blatant way than you could expect.
"How did the world of Fable become that size? Because I'd played Devil May Cry, and noticed that the world was something like 82 zones," he says. "It didn't seem excessive. It re-used and re-contextualised areas. It worked for a relatively short, but high-quality game.
"Literally copying the scope of DMC, the interaction density of Silent Hill, and the encounter style of the first Way of the Samurai changed Fable from a floppy, undefined, never-ending deathmarch to something we could actually complete *without* ever having worked on a 3D game."
Dene Carter Doubles Down On Ripping Off Other Games
The creator continued in his thread, urging budding devs to dedicate themselves to pinching scope from other games to influence their own work.
"Not everything in your game is going to be original," he says. "In fact, very little will be. Manga, anime, Star Wars, etc nearly all rest on some kind of framework or structure set up by folks long before you. Focus on the bits that make your game yours, not 'avoiding using L3 for Run'."
It's a fair attitude to approach game dev with, especially as almost everything has already been seen and done. Everything's a remix, right?
About The Author
Joseph Kime
Joseph Kime is the Senior Trending News Journalist for GGRecon from Devon, UK. Before graduating from MarJon University with a degree in Journalism, he started writing music reviews for his own website before writing for the likes of FANDOM, Zavvi and The Digital Fix. He is host of the Big Screen Book Club podcast, and author of Building A Universe, a book that chronicles the history of superhero movies. His favourite games include DOOM (2016), Celeste and Pokemon Emerald.
