Back when the Fable reboot was first announced and it was revealed Playground Games is working on it, many wondered how the developer mostly known for the Forza Horizon series would be able to adapt to making an open-world RPG. It turns out quite badly at first, according to ex-developer Juan Fernandez, who was recently interviewed by Spanish outlet Vandal (translated by wccftech.)

According to Fernandez, development on Fable was slow during his time at the company, claiming that Playground Games “lacked people with knowledge” on how to actually make a slow-paced RPG.

Related: Fable’s Queer Representation Is A Progressive Product Of Its Time

“They're very smart and they know what they're doing. They wanted to branch out with something different and they thought that what they do well is open-world racing games, [but] they lacked people with the knowledge of how gameplay is done. In an open world, how you control a character and the actions are very different from what you have in a racing game.”

He also claims that Playground’s “doing more with less” mentality is another factor that has slowed development somewhat and that the development process was getting “longer and longer” as a result. However, Fernandez does explain that Playground Games has apparently been hiring more staff since he left, and it’s currently unknown whether these problems are still occurring at the developer.

While we simply have to believe Fernandez at his word, there have been confirmed reports that the Fable reboot has been in development for a significant amount of time. In November last year, Playground’s lead engineer Tom Golton revealed that he had worked on the game for four years, yet didn’t disclose when he joined the project. Having been in development for at least four years and just a teaser trailer to show for it, work on Fable has definitely been slow-going. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about the game later this year.

Fable is currently in development for PC and Xbox Series X, yet won’t release until at least 2023, according to an insider.

Next: Don’t Forget About Cyberpunk 2077’s Disaster In Your Excitement For The Witcher 4