GoKawiilClaude Fable, the company's most powerful model, is now available to all users, but early impressions are disappointing, as it appears to be nowhere near the original release.
When the Department of Commerce announced that it was lifting the ban on Claude Fable, I was holding my breath and counting seconds for the model to show up on Claude Code. I had also loaded up my usage-based credit wallet, just in case the model debuted as strictly usage-based.
To our surprise, Claude Fable shipped for everyone, including those with a $100 Max subscription, but there are multiple restrictions.
According to Anthropic, while Fable 5 is included in Max, Pro, and Team plans, it is heavily capped.
For example, you can use Fable for up to 50% of your weekly usage limits, which is not significant for such a powerful model. But it'll get worse after July 7, as the model will transition entirely to a pay-to-play system via usage credits.
However, the real gut punch is the degraded performance, or as famously used in the AI community, the "nerfed" performance.
On Reddit, users are reporting that the restored Fable 5 feels weaker, or is simply being routed through stricter safety systems more often than before.
"The new guardrails are kicking in on way too many tasks and falling back to Opus 4.8," one user wrote in a Reddit post. "This is not the model that got banned."
The problem is not just limited to Claude desktop, as Claude Code is also struggling with similar issues.
One user said Fable "didn't even let me search for dead code without switching to Opus," while another said it was "very very obvious" when the fallback triggers because Claude tells the user and visibly shifts to Opus.
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