At the Gamescom Opening Evening event, veteran game designer Peter Molyneux unveiled his latest project, a forthcoming god game titled Masters of Albion, during a live showcase. While drawing parallels with Fable and Legacy, the game’s design also exhibits striking similarities to its predecessors.
The reimagined Legacy was unveiled in 2021 by Molyneux and his studio 22cans, promising a blockchain-based enterprise simulation where players could purchase non-fungible token (NFT) “plots” using cryptocurrency – a concept that, as Grandpa Simpson would say, was quite the novelty at the time. Although the sport debuted late last year, it still maintains momentum despite the NFT market’s lackluster performance, which its initial strategy had relied upon.
As Masters of Albion’s final evening unfolds, it seems to be unencumbered by specific blockchain or web3 mechanics, as demonstrated thus far. However, a closer examination reveals that it does incorporate similar systems and mechanics from Legacy, which are woven throughout one’s daily activities.
Molnueux explained that within the game, players are tasked with building a city from scratch, accumulating assets, and generating revenue. In contrast, Legacy’s description emphasizes designing and manufacturing unique products, selling them on the market, and maximizing profits.
Upon examining the product creation aspects of Legacy, one discovers a parallel process with “design and manufacture merchandise” in Masters of Albion, where creating items like rat food or bread swords is feasible through a similar UI/UI element facilitated by a central round pedestal. In each video game, players focus on managing a team as they craft items from a bird’s-eye view, leveraging extensive mouse-based interactions – including drag-and-drop operations via a cursor – to unlock upgradeable powers as they progress.
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The structures appear to be divided into uniform, self-contained modules, well-suited for stacking and creating a modern, modular development. In Masters of Albion, the scraps of paper tracking asset order progress seem to serve a similar purpose as the resource creation progress indicators found in Legacy.
While occasion components may borrow from Legacy systems, this practice wouldn’t be inherently flawed, as game developers often recreate established mechanics to conserve time and resources during the development process, a common occurrence in the gaming industry.
Plus, Masters of Albion enables direct management of a personality with the objective of vanquishing undead and exploring an open-world setting, which seems poised to differentiate its medieval art style and narrative elements from Legacy’s cartoonish capitalist undertones, fostering a distinct identity for the game.
Masters of Albion is expected to debut on PC and consoles, with Peter Molyneux collaborating with veteran developers from the Fable series, including Russell Shaw, Iain Wright, and Mark Healey, in this ambitious, self-funded project.
