The Fable reboot is cutting the cord on co-op. Playground Games' revival of the beloved RPG series will be a purely single-player experience, Polygon reports — dropping the cooperative play that was a defining feature of Fable 3.

It's a meaningful break from series tradition. Fable 3's co-op let players bring a friend into their Albion, share adventures, and build on the social, lived-in feel that set the franchise apart from more solitary fantasy RPGs. For many fans, that shared-world silliness is a core Fable memory.

Playground, best known for the Forza Horizon series, has been rebuilding Fable from the ground up for Xbox and PC, and recent gameplay footage from Gamescom showed off a lavishly detailed Bowerstone. The decision to go solo-only suggests the studio is concentrating its resources on a tightly authored single-player campaign rather than engineering around a second hero.

It's a defensible trade — co-op in RPGs is notoriously expensive to build well — but it means one of Fable 3's most fondly remembered features won't make the trip to the new Albion. Fans hoping to drag a friend through the reboot will be adventuring alone.