Fables creator Peter Molyneux says the next game will be his last

The upcoming Masters Of Albion will be the last match Peter Molyneux ever makes, and he vows this is one promise he will definitely keep.

Peter Molyneux is known for many things. He is credited with not only creating the Fable series for Xbox (which is still a new entry) but also pioneering the god game genre, with classics like Populous and Black & White.

He has also cultivated a reputation for over-promising, with the most famous example being the Curiosity experiment in 2013 which was intended to reward one player the role of ‘god’ in his new game Godus and a portion of the game’s revenue; a prize that the winner never receives in the end.

It seems Molyneux was self-aware enough to own up to his reputation, as he treated the next match as a kind of redemption. And that was something he absolutely had to do, because it was also his last.

Molyneux announced his latest project, Masters Of Albion, at Gamescom last year, describing it as an open world god game where you manage a city by day and fend off monsters by night.

At the time, Molyneux never indicated that Masters Of Albion would be his best song, but admitted as much in the latest issue of Edge magazine, as transcribed by VGC.

Molyneux explicitly refers to past occasions when he over-promised features, but then added that Masters Of Albion would be an opportunity to combine various of his past works, such as Fable and Dungeon Keeper, which, frankly, sounds exactly like an over-promise he couldn’t stop.

‘I think the line in Fable – ‘for every choice, there is a consequence’ – wasn’t conveyed well enough. I think the possession mechanics we have in Dungeon Keeper are not up to par. The open-world freedom that we have in Black & White, I think is great at first, but it doesn’t pay off enough in the end,” Molyneux said.

‘And Masters Of Albion is a chance to combine all that into one. Even if one is an RTS, one is a god game, and one is a role playing game, why can’t we combine them all?’

He went on to describe the Masters Of Albion as a ‘redemption title’: ‘I know people will say, ‘Come on, this isn’t your last game.’ But, you know, I’m 66 years old. I worked as hard as I ever did in my life.

‘And I don’t have the life energy left to do this anymore. Everything I’ve done…it feels like it’s a gamble, you know? I’ve put all my chips on the table.’

Molyneux also refrained from saying that Masters Of Albion would be ‘a great game’ because ‘it was a promise,’ and at one point even expressed doubt as to whether he would actually make it.

His trademark enthusiasm reappeared later in the interview: ‘I’ll tell you a great thing – it’s going to work. It is true. It’s nothing you’ve ever played before, but it’s still very familiar. It’s Black & White, Dungeon Keeper, and Fable, but it’s a whole new genre. And it shouldn’t have worked, but it did.’

Elsewhere in the interview (via Time Extension), Molyneux was also asked about his NFT game Legacy, which managed to raise over £40 million by selling plots of virtual land before it even fully launched.

Despite making quite a bit of money from it, and apparently still playing it today, Molyneux doesn’t seem proud of the game, saying: ‘I don’t support it, because basically the whole idea of ​​crypto gaming is flawed.’

At least this should rule out Masters Of Albion having any kind of blockchain or crypto nonsense. There’s definitely talent behind it, as Molyneux is joined by several former staffers who worked with him at Dungeon Keeper and Black & White.

The game is currently slated for Steam but does not have any kind of release window.

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