Fable III: Albion may finally get more animals running about the place

Lionhead's lead artist, John McCormack, has said that the team's looking into populating Fable III with more animals than just poultry and your devoted dog.

Speaking with Beauty of Games, McCormack revealed that the lack of critters running about Albion was something that always "bothered him".

"The lack of animals in the Fable franchise is always something that has bothered me and we’ve gone a little way into improving in this area for the latest installment," he said.

"The problem is trying to convince an entire animation/AI team to spend their resources away from things like combat, cutscenes, expressions, gestures, simulation etc and work on the new badger we’ve just built.

"As you can imagine, the priority drops somewhat for these things and often don’t make the final cut.

"In Fable III, so far we’ve built bats, crows, rabbits, ducks, robins, vultures, lizards, rats, butterflies, moths, insect swarms, dogs, fireflies, geese and we even started on a cow… whether or not these will make it into the final game is anyone's guess at this point".

Not much on fauna? Fear not. Those with Zoophobia should be pleased to know that the team is also working on the aesthetic appearance of buildings, NPCs, weapons, and the landscape in general.

Fable III's on the list of E3 appearances, and is expected to be released in time for holiday present shopping.

Sir Ben Kingsley provides a bit of voice-acting to it as well.

Thanks Joystiq.