This week at Gamescom, Fable creator Peter Molyneux revealed his next game, Masters of Albion, and he said it might just be his last. In an interview, Molyneux said he expects to be in his 60s when Masters of Albion is finished, and that if he were to make another game, he would be around 75.
Molyneux told GI.biz that he had no guarantee of living that long. “My life expectancy is measured in days rather than years because of my lifestyle. I smoke, I drink, and I don’t sleep enough,” he said. “So if this is my last game, what should it be? And the first thing that came to my mind was I wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to PC and console, and make a game for gamers.”
Molyneux runs the independent studio 22cans, which has created mobile games like The Trail and Godus. He said he was “disillusioned with mobile,” in part because mobile game development requires developers to stick to a specific formula to make money, according to Molyneux.
“I started wondering what I should focus on. I was 60 at the time and I realized that this next game could be my last. I’m not announcing that I’m retiring. I’ll be found dead one morning with my head against the keyboard,” he said.
In a separate interview with IGN, Molyneux explained how he was able to use Albion in his game, specifying that it was a reference to a historical term for Great Britain. According to Molyneux, it is not Microsoft’s property through the Fable series.
“It’s like saying if you decide to put a game in America, you can’t put any other game in America,” he said. “So Albion can’t be copyrighted. It’s the name of England and Wales and that’s how we get by.”
Molyneux added that he was unsure whether Albion could be trademarked. “I mean, you would think that the responsible person that I would be would have spent the last six months in law firms,” he said.
Microsoft owns the Fable series, and the company previously licensed the rights to Flaming Fowl Studios for its CCG Fable Fortune years ago (the game has since been shut down).
If there are legal ramifications, they will come with time. For now, Molyneux said he is excited about Masters of Albion because it “expands and expands” on the worlds he created in the Fable series.
“But it’s not really Fable 5 or anything like that,” he said. “If you’ve played Fable, then Masters of Albion will definitely be familiar to you. One of the things that we’ve managed to really nail, and we really wanted to nail, is humor. I think in Fable games, it’s not so much about telling jokes as it is about giving the player the opportunity to do ridiculous and funny things. And that’s what we’ve managed to do in Masters of Albion in spades. I think we’re really succeeding at that.”
In a separate interview with PCGamesN, Molyneux discussed his history of overpromising and underdelivering. He said he was “really, really, really sorry” for “selling games by overpromising” and talking about features that didn’t exist as if they did. “I apologize to everyone who was excited and disappointed,” he said.
“I really, truly feel sorry for those people. I didn’t do it because I had a plan. I did it out of ignorance, actually, and now I’m really obsessed with only talking about things that I can show,” he said.
Molyneux and 22cans also sparked controversy over the game Curiosity: What’s inside the Cube? The winner was promised a “life-changing” prize, but ultimately received nothing.
