Microsoft isn’t making much of a fuss at the Cologne GamesCom expo, preferring instead to hand much of its allotted keynote presentation time to Peter Molyneux. Fortunately the Lionhead and Microsoft Game Studios bossman wasn’t in the mood to disappoint, and dived straight in with the announcement of ’Fable Episodic’...

As of September 29th Fable II will be broken up into five playable episodes and distributed through Xbox LIVE. The first chapter, in which players enjoy the trials and tribulations of young whippersnapper exploring the open realm of Albion, will be FREE. Subsequent chapters will come at a price – not too lofty, we trust – but at least you’ll have the option to buy or not. Be assured that this is the whole game in bite-sized servings too. That means it possesses all the options and Achievements of its disc-based counterpart, and is fully compatible with the downloadable extras such as the ‘Knothole Island’ and ‘See The Future’ expansions. Good stuff.

But Fable Episodic was just an entree to the real meat of Molyneux’s speech, which was Fable III. Gameplay is set five decades after the conclusion of Fable II, with players cast in the role of the child of the previous game’s hero, who, as a newly-throned King (or queen), is tasked to bring peace and harmony to a divided Albion – or at least rule it with a suitably weighty rod of iron.

The choices will be tough with further-reaching consequences, and players will not be able to stand by as tyranny, poverty and injustice stalk the land. As usual, though, the temptations of taking a darker, more overtly tyrannical path to victory will be ever present. And, as usual, we’ll most likely have no difficulty in resisting them!

It all sounds very promising, and Molyneux is keen to couch things in terms of the disparate routes to power taken by historical figures. We’re not sure things will be quite so momentous, but a quality gaming experience is more or less assured. On the downside we’re looking deep into the back-end of 2010 for this, and all there is to see of the game so far is a single piece of concept art. Trailer, more screens and info soon, with any luck.