The Fable Legends beta will be full of unfinished art, here's why that's a good thing

You can expect the upcoming Fable Legends multiplayer beta to show off a thoroughly unfinished version of the game, including half-finished art and white boxes in the place of some of the environment, Lionhead Studios confirms to Polygon. But in the long-run, we're told, this is only a good thing.

"This is a real beta, it's not a free demo or some marketing stint," said game director David Eckelberry. "Once we begin our beta in Oct. 16 we're going to be sending out a few 1,000 keys, then more every two or so weeks. We don't want to mislead anybody: Some of this will be white boxey, it's not a finished product. Some of the art will be 3/4 of the way done, some not at all. We're looking for honest feedback more than anything else."

Eckelberry tells us the studio expects to allow users to beta test the game over a long period of game — and lucky for them, they have six months between the start of this beta and the launch of the game. As a result, we're told, it will be possible to make relatively large-scale changes to the game based on player feedback. This could include anything from rebalancing in-game characters to getting rid of certain abilities entirely if players don't feel like they gel with the game.

"Fable Legends is an incredibly difficult game to balance," he continues. "We've had to double our Quality Assurance team at this point to ensure we're taking the right measures to test the game totally."

Eckelberry tells us that because the game features multiplayer gameplay, this means new issues can rear their head depending on which characters are placed together — a common problem among multiplayer titles.

In Fable Legends up to four players will work together to fight through Albion, pursuing either good or evil on their own terms.

The multiplayer beta will begin this fall. For a deep dive on Fable Legends, see our feature from E3 2014.