Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more
The seated Kinect gameplay offered by Lionhead’s Fable: The Journey is much more advanced than that found in last year’s Forza 4 and The Gunstringer, creative director Gary Carr told Polygon.
Using “generic technology” originating from the Molyneux’s Milo project, the seated skeletal tracking system could well be the biggest breakthrough in motion tracked gameplay since Kinect first launched.
“With Forza you had to sit slightly on the edge of your seat. But they were a year ago, so we’ve got an extra year on that,” explained Carr. “In Journey you can slouch. It doesn’t worry that you have your coffee table over there, you don’t have to clear space. That was an important step change: people don’t have to re-jig their living space. When you look at houses here in Guildford, England or in Japan where the living spaces are tiny, you need to offer the ability to sit down, which is a concept that came from Milo.”
He continued: “I think that with Kinect there are going to be some step changes that will make the games come through. And one of those things is seated gameplay.
“I think a lot of developers were just waiting for that kind of technology. It’s easier for us to develop it because we’re first party, we’ve got Microsoft supporting us. It’s not fair on third parties to write this kind of technology. It takes time and it’s probably taken us the best part of two and a half years to write it.
“Now I think once this is released back to the industry, we’ll just see lots of long-play games where you can sit down and play.”
Fable: The Journey will be released September 4.
As a departure from the Fable formula, The Journey certainly has its critics, but if seated Kinect gameplay can be integrated without issue it could usher in a new era of Kinect-assisted gaming from the comfort of a sofa – a prospect much more appealing to the hardcore gamer.
