22Cans, the studio founded by Peter Molyneux back in 2012, has announced that their god game Masters of Albion will launch into Steam Early Access next week on 22nd April, specifically at 6PM BST.
Masters of Albion looks to blend city-building, simulation, and real-time combat in a world that’s full of consequence, looking to evolve some of the ideas that have played out through Molyneux’s whole catalogue of games. It’s a systems-driven game where control is really put in the player’s hand, through the use of a day-night cycle.
During the day, you’ll navigate a story, explore, build and manage your town, but the world changes at night. Then towns will be attacked by creatures and you’ll have to defend them in real-time combat, using your powers to save the town from destruction.
In general, you can just do what you want. You can grab people and fling them into the sea, lock them up in stocks, swear at them, and more. You can also be more benevolent while creating homes and buildings in a block-based system, and when defending you can rain down fire and lightning from the sky, or assume control of a hero for some third person adventuring.
Peter Molyneux’s influence on gaming is unmistakeable. He created the god game genre with Populous while at Bullfrog Games, branched off to found Lionhead in 1997 and then created the next generation of god game with Black and White, before taking a crack at RPGs with the very ambitious Fable series. That was a staple of the Xbox and Xbox 360, and is currently undergoing a grand revival over at Playground Games.
Molyneux left Lionhead in 2012, the studio being closed a few years later, and founded 22Cans to do something completely barmy. The mobile game Curiosity: What’s Inside the Cube? involved every player around the world tapping away at a cube to remove layers, with the person who made the final tap winning a prize. It was an absolute PR mess in the end, so he then went to make a mobile god game, Godus, which also ended up as a mess. Thankfully he saw some sense, opened an interview saying “After messing around on mobile – what the hell was I doing?!?”, and has come back to a fully-fledged form of the genre.
Source: press release
Exciting news about Masters of Albion launching into Early Access! It’s always great to see innovative projects from talented developers like Peter Molyneux. Looking forward to seeing how the community reacts to it!
Absolutely, it’s exciting to see what Peter Molyneux brings to the table this time! The concept of a god game with a focus on community-building could really set it apart from others in the genre. I’m curious to see how player feedback during Early Access will shape its development.
god game is always intriguing, especially with Molyneux’s innovative approach. It’ll be interesting to see how the community shapes the game during Early Access, as player feedback often leads to unexpected features and improvements. Here’s hoping it lives up to the hype!