If you are a gamer of a certain age, you probably have fond memories of Peter Molyneux as the mind behind sophisticated games such as Populous, Dungeon Keeperand the fable series. If you are a little younger, you probably remember him as the serial over-pronouncer behind Project Godus and a recent NFT game that somehow attracted $54 million in player pre-investment (it actually released in some form last year). I mention this story because after years of keeping a low profile, Molyneux made a surprise appearance at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live event. He was there to introduce Masters of Albiona title that Molyneux, according to presenter Geoff Keighley, has been “working on in secret for the last three years” and which Molyneux himself describes as “an open-world god game full of combat, decisions, secrets and a story”.

A short, early trailer for the game takes us back to fable‘s “familiar, vast world of Albion, packed with stories, quests, treasures, and monsters.” There, the residents of the town of Oakridge must work during the day to gather and process resources and then defend themselves against hordes of creatures at night.

You can help the citizens as a kind of disembodied hand of God, who helps the players of the Black-and-white Games from decades past. This hand can help distribute resources, design new buildings like Lego bricks, or cheekily drop villagers from the sky.

Players can also exit God Mode and take on characters like the “City Hero,” who in the trailer is seen engaging in extremely generic hand-to-hand combat with some extremely generic looking zombies. If your hero gets overwhelmed, don’t worry, you can just go back to your God Hand and unleash some powerful lightning and fireball attacks.

Do what you want

The trailer talks about the deep micromanagement customization options you can take advantage of, right down to designing the food, clothing, weapons and armor of the residents. “You can be as silly as you want,” intones Molyneux, as the trailer shows a sword made from a loaf of bread (which “isn’t enough”) and long after a scene where he force-feeds the townspeople rats (which are Sims-like overemotion).

After some controversial financing issues for the last games, Molyneux finances the development itself Masters of Albionwho leads a 20-person team that includes Bullfrog/Lionhead veterans such as Mark Healey, Russell Shaw and Iain Wright. “I think my first realization was that I needed to get the old team back together,” Molyneux said of the developers he assembled to “create something new, unique and different.”

You can already create a wish list Masters of Albion on a new Steam page, promising “a world of quests and moral choices” as you “unravel the mystery of the mages, defeat the enemy that lurks in the night, and overcome a sorcery that could kill us all.” You’ll forgive us for waiting until the game releases to see if it delivers on that promise.

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