Without Devil May Cry, the original Fable might have been completely different. Yes, that Devil May Cry. It's an incredible combination, but co-creator Dean Carter recently credited it with being the driving force behind the world of Albion and changing the trajectory of the Fable world.

Carter took to Twitter to discuss the impact hack-and-slash has had on Lionhead's RPGs and offered sage advice for today's developers." I'm sure everyone knows this hack already, but I'm going to talk about it anyway because it might save someone from going completely off the rails during development. Here's a tip if you're lost: 100% take it from another game."

That's where Devil May Cry comes in. The world of Hideki Kamiya's game helped shape Albion. After playing "Devil May Cry," I realized that the world was divided into 82 zones. It didn't seem excessive. The areas are reused and recontextualized. It functioned as a relatively short but high-quality game."

"The game was very well done.

Carter said he recorded each zone. He counted each zone, recorded its size and average time spent, and used that information to "block out the entire Albion world." He said he played the game "with a guide, a stopwatch, and a notepad," adding that he "felt like a charlatan." However, studying the world of "Devil May Cry" helped him refocus on the world of "Fable." At the time, Carter said, the team was "spiraling out of control" with the belief that they had to create something "big."

"Devil May Cry" was not the only inspiration for Carter's team, as they literally copied the scope of DMC, the density of Silent Hill's interactions, and the encounter style of the original "Way of the Samurai." Fable" went from a floppy, undefined, endless death march to something you could actually complete, even if you had never worked on a 3D game. As Carter makes clear, it was about taking up "not a theme, idea, or creativity, just its scope," and likened it to researching the optimal length of a film.

The "Fable" series has long been one of my favorites, and it's incredible how one wildly different game became the classic that it is today. Creative work, especially when entering a particular medium for the first time, is rough at best, and by studying those who have come before us, the art is constantly evolving and improving. As Carter himself says, "Not all of your games will be original. In fact, very few will be. Almost everything - comics, anime, Star Wars - is built on some sort of framework or structure created by people long before you." He added a final piece of advice to budding developers: focus on the parts of your game that make it yours." Don't "avoid running with L3.