DLC Details

• Main Title: Fable 2
• DLC Title: See The Future
• Released (UK): 12/05/2009
• Current Price: 560 MS Points

Background

“See The Future” is the second piece of Downloadable Content released for Fable 2, following on from the enjoyable if limited Knothole Island. See The Future is a similar length to Knothole Island but about a third cheaper. The DLC also rectifies some of the achievement issues from the original game, as the “Pub Games or Online only” achievements can now be obtained with new items that are included in the DLC, there is a potential problem with one of the new achievements though, as it requires you to have the chicken suit, which IIRC can only be obtained through completing the show on the fable 2 website.

New Content and Integration into Original Game

The new content will probably take you 2-3 hours to complete, and another 1-2 hours if you are achievement hunting and possibly more. The game has 2 main quests and 3 new areas, all of which are located in items obtained from the trader Murgo, who you first met in the Fable 2 childhood prologue.

The first new area is the snow globe, and this contains a village that has been cursed by the Shadow Court and you have to return colour to the world. This makes for a surreal quest where you are brightly coloured and are in a black and white world. The second new area is in a cursed skull, and this is a more standard quest, where you have to free a cursed Knight from imprisonment, there is a slight twist at the end of this quest but nothing that is too surprising. The final new area is the Colosseum, and this is a very limited area since as the name indicates it is a Colosseum, and aside from a few achievement related odds and ends the sole purpose of this area is to put you into a never-ending battle for 5 minutes.

Given that there is a return trip to the tattered spire, albeit in model form I am uncertain whether all of the DLC can be completed before you finish the main Fable 2 game, though a test with a secondary character I have not completed the game with showed that the initial quest in the DLC is available, so at least some of the DLC can be completed before finishing the main game. You can also return to each area once the Quests are complete, but aside from finding missing items for achievements and the combat in the Colosseum, there is little point.

My only significant gripe with the DLC is that there was no moral choices involved in the Quests, it was simply a case of do the quests which had a good bias, with no option to take an “evil route”

New Achievements

There are several new achievements included with the DLC. Some of them can actually be completed before buying the DLC, as they all involve tasks that can be completed in the normal game. There are a couple of Quest completion related achievements, and a couple of Colosseum task related achievements.

There are also 2 collection achievements, the first is too collect the 10 Golden Murgo statues hidden in the first 2 areas, and this was quite easy, though it did bring back bad memories of Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust given the similarity in collection items. The second collection item was too find all 10 new Dyes and this was more of a challenge as these are more well hidden, and also involve a bit of exploring and sub quests and are easy to miss.

Positives

• Relatively Cheap
• The Pointless “Achievement Mug”
• The Snowglobe setup

Negatives

• DLC very linear
• No moral choices
• The future “sneak peak” was a bit of a let down

My Recommendation

Buy – 8/10

I am assuming that if you are reading this review, you already have and like Fable 2 and my rating should be taken with that in mind. While the DLC is not perfect and could have used with some moral choices to make things more interesting, given the price and length of the DLC I think it is worth buying if you enjoy Fable 2.

Of the 2 main new quests, I would say that the Snowglobe one was the best one, simply due to the black and white nature of the environment made for a unique feel whilst playing through the quest, the skull quest despite the amusing commentary given by the Cursed Knight was more run of the mill.

As for the future aspect of the DLC, I found that a bit disappointing as all you see is a short narrative scene which I assume will be touched upon again in the prologue to Fable 3, though a bit more insight into Theresa’s motivations are uncovered in it as well, but even so overall a let down. Despite this, I still think that if you enjoy Fable 2 and have the MS Points to spare it is worth buying the “See the Future” DLC.