To those who experienced its arrival, the industrial revolution must have felt indistinguishable from magic. But if you, like us, vicariously experienced one through Fable III’s smog-spoilt Albion, the pangs for a return to the series’ enchanted-forest origins were likely overpowering.Lionhead recognises this gradual drift from wonder to smokestacks and is taking the game back to its roots with Fable Legends, and attempting to conjure up the most ambitious Fable ever. We visit the UK developer’s Guildford studio to speak to the people behind this decidedly un-industrial revolution and to find out what Fable’s new direc𝓀tion will mean for the series. Edge 277 is out now in , on , and .

Videogame adventures had far more modest beginnings, of course, and in Deeper Readingwe investigate the rebirth of the text adventure and meet the developers who are redefining the genre. In Taking The Art Out Of Games we visit the Fries Museum to take in its New Horizons exhibition which examines game art in a new context. It’s not the only exhibition we attend, as we also find time to drop in on Edinburgh’s Game Masters show, which charts 40 years﷽ of exc𒉰eptional game designers’ work.

Talking of designers with history, Playtonic boasts a number of Rare veterans among its number, and we find out how they intend to reclaim the studio’s golden age. Turning our attention to the future, we take a look at Razer’s Open Source Virtual Reality, which it claims is VR’s only❀ hope for survival.