"This world is so rich, so believable and so gloriously detailed it's hard not to be enthralled by it."
Giles Richards, The Observer's video games editor

Ben Kingsley, Michael Fassbender, Zoe Wanamaker, Bernard Hill, Simon Pegg, John Cleese and Stephen Fry are all on the cast list and the 20-track original score is performed by a national symphony orchestra. It sounds like the cinematic event of the year, yet this epic tale will never be seen on stage or screen. Instead, the ensemble cast of more than 80 actors and voice talents makes up the characters of Fable III – one of the most eagerly awaited video games of the year in an industry that is gradually acquiring some cachet among the stars.
Securing the Oscar-winner Kingsley in his first video game voiceover role was perhaps the biggest coup, although the publishers have yet to reveal whether they needed a blockbuster-sized budget to bring the cast together.

"I'd say it was less than you would pay for an animated film," said Georg Backer, audio producer at game makers Lionheart Studios, and the man responsible for bringing the acting talent to the studio. "A lot has been spent but sales expectations are high. It took six months from start to finish and by the end more than 470,000 words had been spoken. We had a list of people who we thought would be perfect for the roles, and went to the agents to sell the story to them. Fable III is quintessentially British with its issues of monarchy, taxation, rebellion and charming humour so it was much easier to sell this to British talent."
Kingsley, who plays Sabine, the leader of the mountain-dwellers, said: "This is my first experience voicing a video game, so what drew me to it was the team, how committed they are, how well organised everything is and how beautiful the game is."

The Observer's video games editor, Giles Richards, said work by Peter Molyneux, the creative director at Fable's publishers Microsoft Games Studios, could be placed alongside modern film auteurs such as Michael Haneke. "The world that he has created is so rich, so believable and so gloriously detailed it's hard not to be enthralled by it. But it's also cinematic, epic and homely all at once – little wonder that Brit acting talent would want to be involved. The roles fit our actors as Ealing once did: clever, witty and idiosyncratic, they recognise in Molyneux an auteur at the height of his game," he said.

Simon Pegg, who plays a soldier always looking for a fight, said it was a unique project to work on. "One of the things that is missing from a lot of video games is good writing and good voice work. I think this one has a wonderful mythology and it's witty and it's engrossing," he explained.
By Friday advanced sales for Fable III, released in the US on Tuesday and in Europe on Friday, had catapulted it to the top of Amazon.com's games chart.

In the past year, more A-listers have lent their voices to the games industry with Mickey Rourke leading the way. As the voice of Richard "Demo Dick" Marcinko in last year's Rogue Warrior, Rourke said he was exploring a whole new realm of entertainment.
Games as big as Fable III now have launch days on a par with Hollywood blockbusters as the internet buzzes with chat. "The first Fable game was the reason I bought my Xbox," one blogger said. "It was and continues to be a groundbreaking. series."