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Peter Molyneux: a fallen god of game design seeking one final chance
By the time you read these words, Peter Molyneux will have taken to the Opening Night Live stage at Gamescom and formally announced his new project to the world. Masters of Albion marks Molyneux's return to the genre he is widely credited with creating. It ditches his studio 22cans' previous focus on mobile development to instead target consoles as well as PC. And it's being made with help from several of Molyneux's old colleagues at his previous studios - Lionhead, Bullfrog - whose design CVs, like Molyneux's own, include a litany of 90s and 2000s classics.
On paper, all of this should inspire a positive reception. But, sitting opposite Molyneux a week before today's announcement, in the quiet boardroom of his small Guildford development studio, the veteran video game designer is clearly nervous. Those 90s and 2000s hits are now a long time ago, and much, of course, has changed. It's been 12 years since 22cans was founded and Molyneux's Curiosity cube caught the headlines, for good and bad, and the subsequent decade has not gone smoothly - crowdfunding concerns with Godus, continued accusations of broken promises, a fractured relationship with the media, and, most recently, an odd foray chasing the NFT fad with a blockchain game unfortunately titled Legacy.
Molyneux, now 65, is visibly older, softly-spoken. Last year, on social media, he described his mental health as "fragile". As we sit down, he asks if I mind whether he vapes as we talk - a habit he tells me he's picked up due to stress. He's not been sleeping well, he says, due to the anxiety of talking to the press once again. At times, when we discuss what this new project means to him - what it potentially could still mean for the latter stages of his career - his voice slows, emotion rising. But, at others, when he's discussing game mechanics, or keen to tell me more than he's strictly allowed, his old enthusiasm shines through, at one point swinging back and forth like a child on his chair.
