The trailer for Masters of Albion, Peter Molyneux’s return to ‘traditional’ style games after a decade-plus stint in mobile development, welcomes you to “the familiar, vast world of Albion.” This world is, of course, the setting of Fable, the beloved RPG series Molyneux served as creative lead on at Lionhead Studios through the 2000s. But today he returns to Albion not to craft a new Fable (that’s Microsoft and Playground Games’ job), but to make something simultaneously new and nostalgic.

Masters of Albion aims to be something of a Molyneux Greatest Hits; a project that revisits ideas from many of the prolific designer’s past games and reinterprets them for the modern age. The result seems to be a mashup of Dungeon Keeper, Black & White, and Fable – a city-building god game that’s also a third-person RPG. Yup, Molyneux’s trademark wild ambition is definitely back.

It’s best to approach Masters of Albion one piece at a time. Let’s start with the god game stuff, born of the design DNA Molyneux created with Populous back in 1989. Played from an isometric perspective, you look after a growing population – building them up from a tiny village to a collection of bustling towns. Establishing supplies and constructing buildings form the basics, but there’s a variety of fun, very Lionhead-esque ideas, such as designing what your villagers will eat in a digital kitchen (with anything from soup and sandwiches to rats on the menu).

Crafting towns that are both economically and physically strong is vital. “We've got this very simple mechanic where by day everything's peaceful, you can explore, you can plan, you can build, you can create,” Molyneux tells me in an interview ahead of Masters of Albion’s reveal. “And then by night, everything will attack everything you own.”

Trolls, zombies, werewolves, and other horrors all descend as the sun goes down. And that’s where another familiar idea comes into play. Just like in Black & White, your avatar within the world is a giant floating hand that can cast miracles. Smiting foes with divine bolts of lighting and flamethrowers is just as important a task as using those deity digits to fit together houses and factories in build mode.

“I think the hand can be a lot more than just picking things up,” says Molyneux, referring to the more simplistic version featured in Black & White and his aims to evolve it for Masters of Albion. “I think we can enhance it. We can make people feel really powerful [and] creative with that hand.”

Eye in the Sky, Boots on the Ground

The short trailer revealed as part of gamescom 2024’s Opening Night Live doesn’t really detail how this next-generation hand has evolved beyond its 20-year-old predecessor. What it does show is a surprising callback to 1997’s Dungeon Keeper that promises to turn Masters of Albion into a wild genre hybrid.

“I loved the Hand [in Dungeon Keeper],” enthuses Molyneux. “I loved being able to pick things up. I loved being able to possess things, but it didn't feel like they comfortably lived together. [...] So what I decided to take is possession mode, but take it in a way that improves and enhances it, makes it meaningful and deep.”

In Masters of Albion, you can point at any living creature in your kingdom and take direct control of it. That could be a villager, a soldier, or even one of Albion’s beloved chickens. More likely, though, it’ll be your hero; a customisable character with their own RPG skill tree, weapons, and armour. They are, effectively, a Fable-like protagonist. And when you possess them (or, yes, a chicken), the camera drops from your eye-in-the-sky god perspective and swings behind them, settling into a familiar third-person camera.

“Possession enables you to play the game rather like the Fable combat system,” Molyneux explains. “You can use magic and you can fight, you can blend the two styles together.”

But possession mode isn’t just about taking command of a warrior to push back your enemies. “You can explore,” Molyneux explains. “And in exploring this vast land of Albion, inspired by Fable, which was inspired by old England, there are many, many places to explore and find.”

The world of Albion is shrouded by a fog of war in which your god hand has no power. It’s through the possession of your hero that you’ll explore what’s hiding in that fog, pushing the clouds back to unlock more and more land for your hand to interact with. And so the two modes depend on each other; you can’t build cities in god mode without exploring via possession mode, and your hero needs to be equipped with new weapons that must be forged in god mode (or, indeed, baked – that returning Fable sense of humour means you can send your hero to war with a baguette blade).

Importantly, Molyneux doesn’t want possession mode to feel like an optional extra. “You can play the majority of the game in that third-person view, which is fantastically exciting,” he says.

“I think my realisation after all these years is I don't want to create a game which forces you, the gamer, to be a certain sort of player,” he explains. “I want you to think, ‘Well, I'm not interested in god mode, I'm interested in possession mode, I'm interested in fighting, I'm interested in creating the armour and the weapons that my hero is going to use in possession mode.’ That's fine.”

Playing God in Old Albion

The demonstration of possession mode in Masters of Albion’s trailer is both impressive and clunky (perhaps to be expected; it is being developed by a lean 20-person team rather than a AAA studio, after all.) That considered, I’m cautious with my expectations. I can’t yet imagine this RPG side being totally fulfilling if played as the primary mode. But Molyneux and his team at 22cans have ambitions of working with the same RPG fabric that Fable was cut from. That means a significant relationship with the concepts of good and evil, with physical transformations based on your choices.

“Your hand will morph, your hero will morph,” Molyneux promises, a feature that echoes both Fable and Black & White. “The whole landscape will morph to reflect what you are doing.”

He hopes, though, that things will be much more nuanced than Black & White’s titular binary ethics. “We have these factions in the game, the Lords’ faction and the Commoners’ faction, and which you are going to support allows us to measure whether you are a person of the people or a person of the aristocracy. So there's a lot more interesting things going on.”

There are also systems that breed consequences not directly linked to any kind of moral ethos. “You can design whatever building you want and these buildings have functions, so you can make a building that's a farm and a mill and a factory and a pub and an inn and a housing block,” explains Molyneux. “And it can be one monstrous building. But be careful. The more you put things together, the more you stress those buildings, the more pollution they cause, and the whole landscape will morph to reflect the pollution you've got.”

Perhaps this is what Molyneux means by finding a way to be more nuanced – pollution isn’t quite as clear cut as, say, forcing children to work in factories and eat rats, but it’s still a philosophical issue that divides opinion.

Masters of Albion sounds like classic Peter Molyneux; a shoot-for-the-stars concept album of ideas from across the industry (or, at the very least, across the UK’s Guildford region where he has always worked). And with classic Molyneux comes ideas you can’t help but wonder if they could possibly work out. This time it’s a question of legality rather than scope: Albion is the setting of Fable, which is owned by Microsoft. So how are Molyneux and 22cans able to set this new game, unaffiliated with Microsoft, in Albion? Is it perhaps a different world, just with the same name?

“Fable was set in Albion, Masters of Albion is set in Albion,” Molyneux clarifies.

So this is the same world. And the reason 22cans can use Albion, at least according to Molyneux, is because Albion is the historical term for Great Britain. “[It’s] like saying if you set a game in America, you can't set any other game in America,” he says. “So Albion can't be copyrighted. It's the name for England and Wales and that's how we get away with it.”

By this logic, the argument seems to be that Fable does not take place in a fantasy world, but simply in historical England – a place that, despite the inclusion of comedy chickens, presumably cannot be copyrighted?

“I don't know if I'm honest, I don't really know,” Molyneux admits. “I hope so. I mean you would think that the responsible person I should be, I would've spent the last six months in lawyers' offices…”

If there are legal complications for 22cans to explore and resolve, they will come in time. For now, Molyneux’s mind is on exploring the untapped depths of the setting. “It's an interesting universe that Fable touched upon,” he says, “and really I think Masters of Albion extends and expands that.

“But it's not actually Fable 5 or anything like that,” he emphasises. “But if you've played Fable, then definitely Masters of Albion will be familiar to you. One of the things that we have got and we absolutely wanted a nail was the humour. I think in the Fable games, it's not so much about telling jokes, it's more about giving you, the player, the ability to do ridiculous and funny things. And we've got that in Masters of Albion in absolute spades. I think we’re really nailing that.”

Masters of Albion may not be a new Fable game, but it is a new spin on Fable’s world – a spin that reunites Peter Molyneux with the god game ideas that he built a career on. We’ll need to see much, much more of this strange genre hybrid before we can say if its ambitions are attainable, but it's nonetheless exciting to see one of gaming’s most prolific creators return with something so distinctly of his inventive mind.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor.

Warning: this article contains full spoilers for both Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the original Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth continues the work of its predecessor, which means it not only recreates the original 1997 classic with modern graphics and gameplay, but it also makes substantial changes to the story. Interestingly, Rebirth isn’t quite as radical as Final Fantasy 7 Remake was, and for much of its runtime is a mostly faithful adaptation of what you remember. But the closer you get to the end, the bigger the rewrites become. Ahead lies the seven biggest changes, which naturally means huge spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the original game. Read on at your own risk!

The Gi Created the Black Materia

In the original Final Fantasy 7, the Black Materia is a mysterious, ancient magical orb that’s capable of summoning meteor, a space-faring rock that can destroy planets. Very little is known of its origin, but its destructive powers are revealed in a mural when the party visits the Temple of the Ancients.

Rebirth partly reimagines the Black Materia, giving it a full origin story. It was created by the Gi, the undead tribe that haunts the tunnels beneath Cosmo Canyon. In a brand new sequence for Rebirth, the leader of the tribe, Gi Nattak, takes you to his village, where it is revealed that the Gi have been living in a restless purgatory for centuries.

In the world of Final Fantasy 7, your spirit is created by the Lifestream and returns to it when you die. Unfortunately for them, the Gi are not born of the Lifestream. It's never explained where they originally came from, but their outsider status means they cannot return to the Lifestream and thus are trapped as ghosts for eternity. In an effort to release them from their curse, the Gi developed a materia that turned black “with pain and spite”. They planned to use it to summon a meteor that would obliterate both themselves and the planet that held them ‘hostage’. In short: absolute nothingness is better than a tortured eternity of undeath.

Before the Gi could use the Black Materia, Aerith’s ancestors – the Cetra – stole it and locked it away in the Temple of the Ancients. Gi Nattak asks Cloud and his friends to retrieve the Black Materia for him, and while they agree to his request, they only do so in the aim of keeping it away from both the Gi and Sephiroth.

Character Introductions Have Completely Changed

Rebirth introduces four new characters to the party: Yuffie, Cait Sith, Cid Highwind, and Vincent Valentine. If you’ve played the original, only Cait Sith will be introduced in the same way you remember.

This time around, Yuffie is not randomly found wandering the world’s forest. Instead, she washes up on the beach at Junon Harbour, with her early moments replacing the CPR scenes with Pricilla from the original game. Yuffie made her way to Junon with the aim of assassinating Rufus Shinra, and her attempt to do so happens as part of Rufus’ military parade.

Cid is also met in an entirely different part of the world. In the original game he’s recruited from his home in Rocket Town, where a disagreement with Shinra turns into an explosive escape. But in Rebirth the party never goes to Rocket Town. Instead, Cid is depicted as a pilot-for-hire. Summoned by sending up a smoke signal at Gongaga airfield, Cid’s initial role is as a fast-travel system, flying you from location to location in the Tiny Bronco. Later, he pledges himself to the party after revealing that he once met Aerith’s biological mother, Ifalna. Upset to learn that she died, Cid agrees to help Aerith in any way she needs.

Finally we have Vincent, who does still remain locked in the Shinra Mansion basement, but is this time met when the party seeks out a computer terminal that will reveal the location of the Temple of the Ancients. Vincent agrees to help, but when the group stumbles across Professor Hojo’s old Reunion lab equipment, he forcibly steps in to stop them. And by forcibly, I mean he transforms into Galian Beast, the werewolf-like monster that was his Limit Break in the original game. After being defeated, Vincent is convinced to tag along with the party because of his past association with Sephiroth and Shinra.

Cloud Tries To Kill Tifa at Gongaga Reactor

Throughout the game, visions of Sephiroth try to convince Cloud that Tifa is an imposter. This all comes to a head at Gongaga Reactor where a tormented Cloud lashes out at Tifa, believing that she is a manifestation of Jenova. He tries to kill her, but Tifa manages to dodge backwards and escape the reach of his sword.

While Tifa survives Cloud’s attempt on her life, she instead falls into the reactor’s lake of liquid mako. She’s then swallowed whole by a Weapon, one of the whale-like protectors of the planet. Trapped inside the Weapon’s huge materia-like belly, she watches as it swims through the Lifestream. On the journey she experiences visions from the past, including memories of her childhood conversation with Cloud when she made him promise to save her. This is all very similar to a sequence from the original game, but it took place much later when Cloud was recovering in Mideel. The sequence ends with Tifa watching a vision of Sephiroth guiding Cloud away from her, foreshadowing the villain’s grip over her friend.

The Weapon eventually resurfaces at Gongaga Reactor and, surrounded by Whispers, releases Tifa. The suggestion is that, much like when Barret was ‘killed’ and resurrected by Whispers in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it’s not Tifa’s time to go yet.

Aerith (and Red XIII) Knew Her Fate

In the original Final Fantasy 7, Aerith had no idea of the death that awaited her at the Forgotten Capital. But in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it was suggested that Aerith was able to see the future. Rebirth reinforces this, and reveals that Red XIII also had the ability to see the future, too (provided you take him on a date at the Gold Saucer.) However, since leaving Midgar, both Red XIII and Aerith have lost their ability to see what’s ahead.

But how could Aerith and Red XIII see the future, and why can’t they now? The answer seems to be Aerith’s White Materia. In the original game this special orb was used to summon Holy, a protective magic that can defend the entire planet. In Rebirth, Red XIII explains that materia is formed of knowledge and memories, and so it seems that the White Materia is the vessel for Aerith’s visions of the future. Red XIII was presumably able to tap into those visions, perhaps as a result of his time spent at the spiritual retreat of Cosmo Canyon. The problem is that by the events of Rebirth the White Materia is no longer white – it’s colourless and ‘empty’. The memories are gone, as thus so is its power to call Holy.

Those memories were taken by the Whispers. Last year, Square Enix confirmed that each time the Whispers touched Aerith in Remake, they stole away another memory. By the time the Whisper Harbinger had been defeated, every one of her future memories had been taken away, leaving her none the wiser of her fate.

In Rebirth’s final chapter, Cloud is taken to a new reality where he meets an alternate version of Aerith who has her own working White Materia. She tells him “Whatever happens, don’t blame yourself,” clearly demonstrating that this Aerith also knows of her fate thanks to her materia. She gives her orb to Cloud and sends him back to his reality, allowing him to reunite his Aerith with a working White Materia, those future memories, and the power to call Holy.

Sephiroth Wants the Multiverse, Not Just the Lifestream

Sephiroth’s plan in the original game was to ascend to godhood via absorbing the Lifestream. While he still seems pretty set on that ascension in the remake trilogy, Rebirth reveals that his master plan also involves conquering the multiverse via something called Reunion.

Reunion is not a new thing for Final Fantasy 7 fans, but in the original game it referred to the reunion of Jenova’s cells. In Rebirth, it refers to Sephiroth orchestrating the convergence of many different worlds or realities. He calls this a ‘homecoming’, and when it begins he says their joining is a “confluence of worlds and emotions.” It seems, then, that the mass collection of both realities and the emotions of those who live within them is important to Sephiroth’s overall plan. And since he still wants the Black Materia, it seems pretty obvious that mass destruction of not just one world but many is on his bucket list…

Zack and Aerith Are Still Alive, Sorta

In the original Final Fantasy 7, Aerith was killed by Sephiroth at the Forgotten Capital. However, the final cutscene implied that her spirit lived on in the Lifestream, and that she was able to protect the planet from meteor from there. This idea has been kept for Rebirth, but it is presented in a very different way. Aerith still dies by Sephiroth’s sword, but her spiritual form lives on and can directly communicate with Cloud – although sadly the rest of the party are unaware of her presence. In the final cutscene, Aerith promises Cloud that she will stop the meteor – a clear nod to the original game’s finale.

While Aerith’s fate is only somewhat different to the original game’s version, what we see of Zack is very different. He outright died in the original, of course, but the creation of multiple realities in the remake trilogy means that Zack lives on in different worlds of the multiverse. We actually see multiple different versions of Zack across Rebirth in worlds separate from the ‘main’ reality our heroes live in. At the very end of the game, though, the Zack that fights in the final battle ponders on something Sephiroth told him: that worlds unite and part. He wonders if that means that worlds can reunite a second time. The implication – or at least the hope – is that Zack’s reality will unite with a world where he can live happily with alternate versions of Aerith and Cloud, as the ones in his reality appear to be terminally sick.

Glenn Lodbrok and the Shinra vs. Wutai War

The original Final Fantasy 7 briefly established that Yuffie’s home of Wutai was once at war with Shinra. The remake trilogy has expanded on that, and it becomes a notable secondary plotpoint in Rebirth. There’s currently a cease-fire agreement between Wutai and Shinra, but Glenn Lodbrok – a former SOLDIER who defected to Wutai – is attempting to stoke the fires of war again and destroy both Shinra and Midgar. In a public address he claims that Shinra has massacred Wutai soldiers – a situation he almost certainly engineered to increase tensions – and also falsely blames the emergence of the Weapons on the company.

In the finale, it is revealed that Glenn is actually a puppet of Sephiroth, and that the attempts to reignite the Shinra vs. Wutai war is a ploy to distract Rufus. Sephiroth does not speak plainly about why he’s doing this, but he does say “our promised land will become a reality”. Based on this, it’s logical to assume that he’s trying to divert Rufus’ attention away from his goal of discovering the Promised Land. In the original Final Fantasy 7, Sephiroth sought the Promised Land as it was a place where he could absorb the mass amounts of Mako energy required to use the Black Materia and cast Meteor. Meanwhile, the late President Shinra hoped to find it and use its energy to build Neo Midgar. We know Rebirth’s version of Rufus still hopes to complete his father’s work, and it makes sense that this version of Sephiroth still requires the energy. Thus, if Rufus is distracted by a war with Wutai, then Sephiroth can more easily beat him in the race to the Promised Land.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.