The man behind Fable and Black and White leaves for a new studio.
Peter Molyneux, the man behind such well loved franchises as Fable, Black and White and Populous has announced via Twitter that he has left both Microsoft and Lionhead Studios in order to join a brand new company.
The tweet reads, “I have left the lovely amazing Microsoft and lionhead. Now for something realy amazing, scary and brave a new company called 22 Cans.”
The announcement comes at a time when his now former company, Lionhead, is in the midst of developing Fable: The Journey for Kinect and the newly announced XBLA title, Fable: Heroes. No further details are known concerning the terms of Molyneux’s departure or his new venture.
PixlBit wishes Molyneux the best of luck and will have more information on this announcement as it becomes available.
To be honest, this makes perfect sense and I'm surprised he didn't leave sooner. I admire Molyneux because unlike other developers, he actually tries to do something different. He hasn't been succeeding recently and the Fable series has really gone downhill. I can't see him being happy with the direction the series is going in and this is the result.
I hope Molyneux finds success someplace else and I look forward to his inevitable new project.
Now that I think about it, I agree with Esteban on this one. I still need to get around to Fable 3 since I have it, but I think I'll love it more than hate it based on what I've heard about it. I'm not interested in these Kinect Fables or offshoots in general. The series will definitely continue I assume, but I can completely understand Peter leaving. Fable has always been a passion project for him, but he's never been able to really achieve what he's looking for. Maybe the series just got away from him too much, he realized he wanted to start fresh? He's a brilliant guy and he has a very emotional and intellectual approach to his designs and brainstorms. During development of Fable 2 he loved talking about making a player feel emotion and love for their dog and developing a very relatable and human-animal bond. During Fable 3 among many things, he wanted to get players to experience the intimacy of holding somebody's hand and developing a relationship. Maybe Fable couldn't keep up with him, or maybe it's just not working well as his artistic outlet anymore?
I'm gonna keep checking out new mainline Fable titles, but I really want to see what Peter does next in his new company. Fable games have never been the greatest thing, but they have always been different and nobody can take that away from them. They have complex ideas behind them, and usually the mechanics just don't serve the purpose or achieve the goal. Nobody else in the industry strives for the things Peter strives for, and I respect that about him. He's a breed apart, his design goals are abstract, and as a result games like Fable end up being difficult to label or compare to other games. If you look at Fable and just think of it as an RPG you can easily start comparing it to others like Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc. But when you look at the really important and subtle nuances to Peter's games you will see that there's nothing else like them in gaming.
There's nobody else in the industry competing with Peter on the "make players feel love, hold hands, have a dog companion, cry, laugh, etc" front. You can't look at the industry and say, "Molyneux is okay but he sure doesn't do all that as well as this other guy." You can only compare his work to his previous work because there's not really any precedent for what he tries to do. Peter is a breed apart and you can't predict what he'll do next or what abstract goals will be behind his next project. You honestly just have to wait around and see what he comes up with next.
Well said, sir. Oh and Fable III is highly disappointing but still enjoyable. Also, it's only worth like $10 at the most now so you might as well keep it and give it a try. Because you're stuck with it.
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