Looks fantastic indeed. I tried running it on Steam deck but I wouldn't call it supported. The default layout configuration is not working, only touchscreen.
I have such fond memories of Dungeon Keeper, Dungeon Keeper 2, Fable, Black & White, Populous.
I think the biggest take away from Molyneux's work is regardless of how seriously he talked the games up, the games themselves never once took themselves too seriously. There was a level of playful whimsy that just didn't exist back then (and probably still doesn't today). You could tell he wanted to say more and do more, but was always limited by the technology available at the time. It felt like he was searching for something in the games he developed, and I was always happy to go searching with him.
Populous! That's a name I haven't heard for a long time. It was so much fun building out the land, smiting people, and then saving the day after earthquakes, etc. Good times.
I have yet to see a modern version that was half as interesting.
I’ve never understood the people who took him at face value but I’ve also never understood people who didn’t like the guy.
He made some of the most interesting and original and fun games out there. What, he can’t puff up his chest once in awhile? If anything I want more games from him.
Huh, what this whole article actually led me to find is that the winner of Curiosity never actually got any price. The price they were supposed to get was never even developed. I guess that’s some way to get out of your contractual agreements. Wonder how that would have gone for them if the winner wasn’t a clueless 18 year old.
One of my favorite things in game journalism is still Rock Paper Shotgun kicking off an interview with Peter Molyneux by asking him if he's a pathological liar.
It’s just hard to read. Clearly he can make amazing games given constraints, but… It feels like there’s always an excuse for not doing as promised, and only trying to justify things in hindsight.
I guess all problems could be solved by just having him work on the game, and leaving PR to literally anyone else. Hell, the janitor would be a safer bet.
I think Peter put into the right environment and restraints could still be a great thing. I really dislike the cancelling that's in a lot of gaming discussions for any personality that doesn't tell people what they want to hear, or fucks up so they can be cast as a villain (OTOH, I think many gamers just like drama, they love a redemption story too).
To my mind games should encourage the interesting, fantastical and weird "What if you could..." elements, and that's what Molyneux/Bullfrog/Lionhead have introduced repeatedly over the years. Developers like him should be prolific and encouraged as I'd really hate to see the breadth of gaming reduced and more focus on safe derivatives of a few genres. I'd love to hear him shoot the breeze on games and what others have produced, but he could only ever do it under a false name as his own carries too much baggage.
I'm a huge fan of the games he has been a part of so I was familiar enough with his antics to know that Curiosity would end up being nothing, but he really outdid himself here, Peak Peter Molyneux behavior.
I vaguely recall playing Fable on the Xbox and being satisfied, though not blown away by it. It was certainly one of the most fleshed-out house-buying/marriage-allowing games I recall playing (not the first, though) and probably paved the way for more complete systems.
I love Peter Molyneux and he's built amazing things, but he is certainly a hype factory.
I absolutely loved that game on Xbox. It's the only reason I own an original Xbox.
It came out when I was just branching out into the world without my family around, and seeing a game where my choices changed my appearance was kind blowing to me.
I still love this game, though the replayability was definitely overhyped. It's pretty much the same every time.
Yeah, I got the Xbox for Halo 2, but Fable was an absolute top highlight as well. Those two games and Morrowind made up the vast vast majority of my hours on that console. Great times :)
I remember the house buying as being very basic. You could buy a house, fill it with items, sell the house, steal all the items from it, and buy it back for less, as many times as you like. I also remember being rather frustrated I couldn’t pull the sword out of the stone by becoming max good, to I gave up and became max evil, much to the disappointment of my character’s wife.
I maxed out the fireball spell, then targeted it at the stone walls of a building to let the splash damage murder the residents without alerting the guards or accumulating evil points. Great way to open new properties on the rental market.
One of my favorite franchises, and although I would love to see a new Fable game come out, I fear I'd wind up with a Saints game. Completely disconnected from the original game. Ridiculous.
Just looked up Saints Row reboot again, it flopped so hard that they shutdown the studio behind it, making the game literal abandon-ware. Yikes.
The reboot has already passed the point of teaser trailers. The new studio is Playground Games best known for the Forza Horizon games. (The alternating "silly" open world titles between Forza Motorsport "serious" racing titles.) Given the success of Forza Horizon and their cadence at regularly delivering it, this Fable reboot probably won't kill the studio, but might push them back into the "only do Horizon games, please" box.
The Saints Row reboot had some writing on the wall that it might be the last one from the developer anyway, and it was reflected in the design. The Chicago-based Volition (for several decades under several publishers, and even through a messy divorce/remerger) was forced to move to Austin, TX to be closer physically to other teams under the same publisher (notably Gearbox). The reboot attempted to be a love letter to their new forced home, but a lot of "their creative heart wasn't exactly in it" was visible on too many levels, and it was easy enough to guess that when a publisher forces a move like that they may be looking for easy layoffs and eventual team mergers.
Boo to associating Britain with heroic failure. We do this too much to ourselves! Actually, British game development industry is a notable success and has turned Leamington Spa from a byword for chintziness to an exciting place to work.
Not sure which part of it is a failure. Even the articles said > it was successful enough that Lionhead was bought by Microsoft in 2006, and its two sequels also sold well.
And one that probably few here have heard of: Lapioware - Diesel Railcar Simulator
Mentioning that one because it's a one man show. Made by a man who felt nostalgic for the diesel railcars & landscapes of 1960s Britain. So he ended up making one of the most realistic train sims.
I'm so glad I didn't hang around in video game forums & news sites and got to experience Fable in its pristine form.
It's a beautiful game with a great environmental quality to it, much like classic World of Warcraft and Skyrim. Simply roaming around, taking in the visuals, the music, and the ambience was an enjoyable experience in itself, without even doing the quests or progressing the story.
Whenever I read about it now, it's just a bunch of people complaining about how overhyped it was and how their own expectations prevented them from enjoying the game. Sad!
This, so very much. Nowadays I go to great lengths to avoid reading any reviews or opinions on media I want to consume. Regardless of whether it is a book, movie, tv show or game.
I ask my partner to order books for me or to check what other entries are in a series because it is basically impossible to look up something like this without being jumped with summaries, ratings, opinions and similar that rob one of an unbiased experience.
I'll always remember the 2017 "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" movie. I watched it at the movies with zero expectations and thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was great. Much later I read some article or something on it and apparently people agreed it was terrible. I don't think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I had heard about it beforehand.
Fable was a game that was hyped up far beyond what it delivered or even what was possible at the time. It was entertaining but sort of just an above average game. Not an amazing game, not a legendary game. For some reason there was a lot of games journalism at the time that propped up the image of people like Peter Molyneux, maybe because of Black and White. In the end gamers didn’t get what they expected.
Readit News
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2373630/Moonring/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160/SKALD_Against_the...
It's free, it plays like Ultima 4 but modern (nice colors, animations, more than 26 possible actions :) ). I think I'm in love.
Thank you for posting this!
Dead Comment
I think the biggest take away from Molyneux's work is regardless of how seriously he talked the games up, the games themselves never once took themselves too seriously. There was a level of playful whimsy that just didn't exist back then (and probably still doesn't today). You could tell he wanted to say more and do more, but was always limited by the technology available at the time. It felt like he was searching for something in the games he developed, and I was always happy to go searching with him.
I have yet to see a modern version that was half as interesting.
He made some of the most interesting and original and fun games out there. What, he can’t puff up his chest once in awhile? If anything I want more games from him.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/peter-molyneux-interview-go...
I guess all problems could be solved by just having him work on the game, and leaving PR to literally anyone else. Hell, the janitor would be a safer bet.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/08/peter-molyneux-is-bac...
He's a dreamer who won't shut up. Nearly everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit hype.
To my mind games should encourage the interesting, fantastical and weird "What if you could..." elements, and that's what Molyneux/Bullfrog/Lionhead have introduced repeatedly over the years. Developers like him should be prolific and encouraged as I'd really hate to see the breadth of gaming reduced and more focus on safe derivatives of a few genres. I'd love to hear him shoot the breeze on games and what others have produced, but he could only ever do it under a false name as his own carries too much baggage.
I love Peter Molyneux and he's built amazing things, but he is certainly a hype factory.
It came out when I was just branching out into the world without my family around, and seeing a game where my choices changed my appearance was kind blowing to me.
I still love this game, though the replayability was definitely overhyped. It's pretty much the same every time.
Just looked up Saints Row reboot again, it flopped so hard that they shutdown the studio behind it, making the game literal abandon-ware. Yikes.
The reboot has already passed the point of teaser trailers. The new studio is Playground Games best known for the Forza Horizon games. (The alternating "silly" open world titles between Forza Motorsport "serious" racing titles.) Given the success of Forza Horizon and their cadence at regularly delivering it, this Fable reboot probably won't kill the studio, but might push them back into the "only do Horizon games, please" box.
The Saints Row reboot had some writing on the wall that it might be the last one from the developer anyway, and it was reflected in the design. The Chicago-based Volition (for several decades under several publishers, and even through a messy divorce/remerger) was forced to move to Austin, TX to be closer physically to other teams under the same publisher (notably Gearbox). The reboot attempted to be a love letter to their new forced home, but a lot of "their creative heart wasn't exactly in it" was visible on too many levels, and it was easy enough to guess that when a publisher forces a move like that they may be looking for easy layoffs and eventual team mergers.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/fable
I really hope they take the feeling of Fable (that what made me like it in the first place) and roll with it.
And if they make it great, It was Peter Molyneux fault...
Not sure which part of it is a failure. Even the articles said > it was successful enough that Lionhead was bought by Microsoft in 2006, and its two sequels also sold well.
And one that probably few here have heard of: Lapioware - Diesel Railcar Simulator
Mentioning that one because it's a one man show. Made by a man who felt nostalgic for the diesel railcars & landscapes of 1960s Britain. So he ended up making one of the most realistic train sims.
- Revolution Software (Broken Sword series)
- Fireproof Games (The Room series)
- Jagex (RuneScape)
- Core Design (Tomb Raider)
- Dovetail Games (Rail and Train Simulator*)
It's a beautiful game with a great environmental quality to it, much like classic World of Warcraft and Skyrim. Simply roaming around, taking in the visuals, the music, and the ambience was an enjoyable experience in itself, without even doing the quests or progressing the story.
Whenever I read about it now, it's just a bunch of people complaining about how overhyped it was and how their own expectations prevented them from enjoying the game. Sad!
I ask my partner to order books for me or to check what other entries are in a series because it is basically impossible to look up something like this without being jumped with summaries, ratings, opinions and similar that rob one of an unbiased experience.
I'll always remember the 2017 "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" movie. I watched it at the movies with zero expectations and thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was great. Much later I read some article or something on it and apparently people agreed it was terrible. I don't think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I had heard about it beforehand.