In an interview with Develop (by way of IGN), Peter Molyneux, creator of Fable, Black & White, and most recently Godus, completed the Fable circle. What's the circle you might ask? Well, Molyneux has a tendency to over-promise and over-hype each Fable game prior to release, with talks of revolutionary gameplay, emotional character interaction, and epic storytelling. After each release of a Fable game, Molyneux has been noted to eventually reflect and state that the game wasn't very good. As of yesterday on Develop, Molyneux has completed the circle.
"I think Fable III was a trainwreck,” Molyneux told Develop. “It was built to be much bigger than what it was constrained to be and eventually ended up as."
Molyneux no longer works at Lionhead Games, the Microsoft owned British developer where he created Fable, but he's gone on to say that while Fable I and II were also flawed games, they were closer to what he would have wanted Fable III to be – and that if he could go back to the development of Fable III, he would spend another year making it the game it should have been.
“I think Fable II was a step in the right direction. If I had my time again, I’d take the advances we made from Fable I to Fable II, I’d make the same advances from Fable II to Fable III and spend another entire year working on Fable III. But would it be that perfect gem that’s in my mind? No.”
In references to his perfect "gem", Molyneux is talking about creating a near perfect game.
Peter Molyneux is a man that says a lot of things. Some have called the the prolific game designer overly ambitious, and others have call him something akin to a snake oil salesman. I tend to side with overly ambitious, as I think he means well. He just lets excitement get the best of him.
"Last time I was talking about a game feature, I got really excited and said it would be ‘the utopia of game design’, but that’s just me talking with no filter. When I was at Microsoft, there were these PR policemen in the room trying to pour buckets of cold water over me when I got too excited," Molyneux stated.
That's our Peter Molyneux!
