I never thought the arrow physics where anywhere near realistic. It was nearly hired an, and though you would have to lead a little bit, it never felt deep or skillfull to me. It had a very arcady style, so it worked, and the nature of the combat fit, but I definitely prefer a more realistic physical nature to differentiate more from firearms. That's just me, and in Horizon's gameplay loop, it made sense.
Yeah, Horizon is a game designed around fun and cool factor, not realism. I mean, it's a world of robot dinosaurs, lol. Fable is similar, though (fun > realism).
Still, they could add drop to the archery in Fable without much trouble, in a way that they couldn't with Horizon. In most games featuring archery (including Fable), the main challenge is lining up a headshot. That's pretty much a one-step process: aim at head, the end. Sometimes there's a helmet, so it's a two-step process: aim for helmet, now aim for head, the end. Adding a requirement to account for drop wouldn't be a burden there, and it might make things a little more challenging.
Horizon's archery combat is more complicated, though -- scan/analyze weaknesses, choose component target, select bow type, select arrow type, get the angle (a head is on top and visible, but machine components are often not), fire, take evasive action (a headshot will kill people dead, but firing shots at machines generally just pisses them off), knock off armor plating in order to get at vulnerable components, choose component target, select bow type, select arrow type, get the angle, fire ... repeat while dodging and running from a three-ton, jumping, fire-spewing robot crocodile.
Having to account for drop in the middle of all that would be needlessly complicated, and it would suck the fun out of it. On the other hand, adding drop to a normal archery set up (like in Fable) would be fine. Might not be a bad idea. Depends on what direction they want to go.
Reminds me... combat in Fable was
extremely simplistic. Press Y to win, basically. I don't even think aiming was required in Fable 3. Hopefully Playground will make combat more interesting, without losing the accessibility that Fable is known for.