Fable 3's development was 18 months of regretful compromise

gamedeveloper.com:

Ex-staffers at Lionhead Studios spoke to The Gamer about Fable 3, where they discussed the highs and lows of making the closer to the original fantasy-RPG trilogy. 

Fable 3 released in 2010, a little over two years after Fable 2. But despite the shorter timeframe, former creative director Dene Carter claimed the issue back then wasn't really crunch; if anything, Lionhead "largely fixed" the process of creating a Fable game by the time of his departure in 2009. 

That sentiment was similarly echoed by gameplay programmer Kostas Zarifis, who said making Fable 3 was a smoother cycle than its predecessor. "The ground was finally not so shaky," he noted, explaining that the tools from the first two games were of great help here. 

Sometimes, it's easy to tell when sequels are made in a short development time, either on a presentational or mechanical level. Zarifis pointed out that Lionhead actively avoided doing "Fable 2, again," calling it a boon and a burden: "We can't help it. It's kind of a blessing and curse, the Lionhead way." 

Rather than crunch, the past Lionhead staff said they chose to cut where they could. As he has been previously, Peter Molyneux candidly called Fable 3 "a third of the size it should've been." He told The Gamer the game's final third wherein players take the throne and rule Albion was severely cut down from its original intended design. 

"What we wanted to do is give players the feeling that they could be whatever [royalty] they wanted," Molyneux explained. After the first act was about players' "claim to power," the next two would've juggled that responsibility and shown visible consequences like in the first two games. 

Instead, Lionhead did enough cutbacks that Molyneux called them "ten mini-events."

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