Game Review: Fabledom (Xbox Series X)

Are you the type of person to look at a city-builder with a sense of dread and disgust? A person who finds themselves overwhelmed by vast menus and complex systems? Unable to fully grasp gameplay and lacking the patience needed to enjoy the game? Are you the type of person to find city-building games a frustrating experience overall? Don’t be insulted if all of this sounds like you, you’re far from alone, and city builders do tend to have a niche audience rather than a wide one.

Which is where a game like Fabledom comes in. Looking to attract a casual audience, without compromising (much) on the core mechanics of the gameplay system. It promises a laidback experience, one that still has depth, but also uses a fantasy setting. All of which is delivered upon in charming and addictive fashion.

The laidback nature of the game is clear from the start as the main menu offers the player two ways to play, Campaign Mode and Creative Mode. The latter of which is the freedom to build your city from scratch without worrying about anything and where everything is unlocked and free from the start. Whereas the former does exactly what is says on the tin, offering up a campaign with varying degrees of challenge.

Pick a country, choose who you and who you’d like to end up with (like a dating sim) and then start building a kingdom. Beginning with little more than a handful of peasants called Fablings and a wagonful of supplies. You’ve got to get your people working, but also provide them with homes to live in and ensure food and water is in steady supply. The more appealing your kingdom, the more Fablings will want to move to it, so it’s up to you to ensure homes are readily available and nobody is left to starve.

It is these aspects that are often the part of city building games that put people off, but Fabledom has found a way to really simplify things. Build, assign workers, and the rest will just happen naturally. You don’t have to micromanage anyone here, although that is a limited option if you choose.

At first, all your focus will be on expanding your population and ensuring a steady supply of materials and food comes in. As you complete tasks, earn money, and reach milestones, more and more things are unlocked and a ‘story’ starts to emerge. One based around uniting kingdoms, ensuring prosperity for all, and maybe finding a soulmate along the way.

Whose got time for love or friendship though when your kingdom has iced over in Winter and you didn’t stockpile enough coal for the cold period? To be fair, these issues are nothing more than a minor inconvenience and progression is consistent. It’s so much fun to see your Kingdom transform to the point where class becomes a thing. All while it has a wonderfully attractive fairytale sheen.

That aspect is more than just visual too, as players can get a hero to join their city and use that hero to command armies and interact with points of interest on the map. Points of interest like a giant beanstalk, a spooky graveyard, or even a local witch. Most of which offer substantial rewards when dealt with.

Things start to get more complex when it’s time to start reaching out to other kingdoms. It’s at this point you have to start balancing the needs of your people with the desires of others. Some rulers want peace, others want war, so you have to be prepared for both eventualities. All while running trade routes to ensure a steady supply of materials. Complex but still fun, and still very accessible.

Fabledom lives up to its promise of a laid-back experience, but with that, comes a few problems. After a while, gameplay grinds to a halt as resources can be slow to come in and you’ve not been able to reach the point where you can trade. At this stage, there’s very little else you can do except wait for resources to come in. Sometimes, this can take a long time as the lack of micromanagement in buildings means you can only assign a certain number of Fablings to a certain building and once full, you just have to let them get on with it.

There are plenty of minor niggling issues with Fabledom, but resource gathering and the issues around it, is certainly the most prevalent. Compounded by the ‘Nobility’ currency that is hard to come by because the tasks set to earn it are so challenging because of the resource issues.

90 days to collect 50 pieces of wood? No problem, and then you watch your Fablings do nothing and fail the mission having collected 12. So frustrating and limiting because Nobility is used to influence the outcome of certain events and hero encounters.

This could be addressed in a future patch though, and if it is, it will make all the difference. Regardless, Fabledom is a lovely game and one of the better modern city builders because it does exactly what it promises, proves to be very accessible, but has depth if you so crave it.