Peter Molyneux

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Fable II's finished, and if you don't like it then Peter Molyneux has "failed as a game designer", the very candid developer told us in our recent London sit down.

Like all of his creations, admits the Lionhead boss, his first game of the generation has its share of flaws (which he's not shy on discussing below), but it's also his proudest creation to date - something he seems to have taken to heart quite significantly.

Here's what the game designer had to say when we sat down to talk all things Fable, and what he's moving on to now it's in the can...


Fable II is finally finished. How does that feel?

Molyneux: You know the funny thing is it's never really finished because, for me, I'm just about to go from here tomorrow morning at 7am to the airport and I fly to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Redmond, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, Wellington and back for home. So I'm... just talking about it is quite terrifying!

But I sit back and I look at Fable 2 - and I've played it a hundred times - and I'm just incredibly proud this time. I'm proud of what we've achieved and how much uniqueness is in there, and I'm proud of the fact that we're not... [pause]. I haven't made the mistakes I made in Fable 1 and tried to shove all the game features into the game, just because they were game features, and not even thought about pacing. You know, I'm immensely proud of what we've done. The story is incredible.

So have you fulfilled your original vision?

Molyneux: I think so, yeah. I think you can measure me by this game, I'd say that. If you don't find Fable 2 cool then I shouldn't be a designer any more, I don't think.

It's interesting you mention mistakes it Fable 1, because overall Fable 1 was thought of as a great game...

Molyneux:It wasn't a great game, it was a flawed game.

Well a lot of the criticism came from the final game not matching what you were promising...

Molyneux: Exactly, that's exactly right. I didn't do this because I'm some PR guru, I did this because when I talk to you I'm a kid showing off my toys at Christmas, that's who I am. I just can't help myself getting excited and saying, 'you've got this and this and this.' And I talked to you lot and I put this game up here [raises hand], and when you looked at it, it was actually there [lowers hand].

So it came down from where it actually was, so of course what are you going to write? 'I thought it was so much more,' that's what you're going to write. Now on Fable 2, I've pitched the game here [raises hand again] but I think the game's up here [raises hand higher]. So when you write about it, I hope you're going to say, 'this is a lot more than what I expected.' That's what my secret plan is.

Did you make a conscious decision not to over-sell the sequel?

Molyneux: Absolutely. I wrote this letter and I really meant that. If you look, there was Peter Molyneux talking to the press before that letter and after that, so everything in that letter I meant. And I said, 'Look, I'm sorry. I oversold it, I got too excited. I realise that I spoke about features before they were in the game.'

And I really meant what I said, so everything in Fable 2... firstly I've only spoken about the stuff I could demonstrate. I've never talked about the story, I've never talked about how it all links together. So when you actually play the game, you actually see what I mean by the dog and the combat and the simulation and stuff like that. I want you to come away and say, 'Why didn't he tell me about this?!' because it's really exciting, because that is so much cooler. I think it was just me not thinking properly in Fable 1. I think I had a duty to prove to the world that, you know, I could be responsible.

Did you find it hard to take that step back, as it were?

Molyneux: I found that I had to bite my lip an awful lot and, you know when you guys asked questions I had to say like, 'I'm not gonna tell them about that,' even though I was passionate to tell them about that. It's been a learning experience. People have noticed my knuckles were white as I'm gripping the chair trying not to say anything [laughs]

On the topic of past critiques, is there anything you'd change or add to Fable II now that it's done?

Molyneux: There are low spots in the game and it's no one's fault that these low spots are there, it's just that there's a lot to this game. You've got to remember that we're not building a corridor game here where you can say "right, in one hour fifteen minutes, someone's going see that light and we're going make that light like this."

I think the lip-sync is pretty bad, you know, the quality of the animation falls off, you know, quite a lot, I think the navigation can be a bit dodgy sometimes, I think the dog can... get a bit fractured sometimes. But those are sideline issues, you're not going care about those, they're technical issues, and I wish we'd had time to polish every single tiny second of the game.

But you don't want me to do that, you want an experience, and what I'm most happy with is the experience that people are getting when they play through this game. And the only people that have played through this game is the team that's worked on it, and they're the ones that normally turn round to me and say, "What the **** were you playing at!?" And they're the ones now in Fable 2 and everybody at Lionhead said Fable is different to any other game they've played before, it's a unique experience and it's better. The game is actually better than they thought it would be.

That must raise your expectations for the sequel's reception pretty high? Especially considering the first game was in the top three selling original Xbox games...

Molyneux: Yep, it was in the top three selling Xbox games. It surprised Microsoft so much - they didn't understand that. Microsoft is a very formulaic driven company, you know, "If you get this in reviews then it equals this sales." And it beat their sales forecast by a factor of three. That's still a record for them. I learnt a long time ago, there's no way to predict what a game's going to be selling like. There's just no way.

I don't know how it's going to be received, I've no idea. I think if people don't look for problems in Fable, if they don't care so much about jaws moving in the exact time with the lip-syncing, it might do well. But if people want to criticise... there's things to criticise in Fable 2, I'll be absolutely honest with you. I think though, it's the things that you've yet to discover that really will give Fable 2 its rightful score.

Do you see much competition for Fable this Christmas?

Molyneux: The competition is insane. I wish this industry wouldn't be so Christmas focused because, you know, as a gamer - because I am a gamer as well - I don't know which way to turn. If we just start with Fable 2, then there's Fallout, and after Fallout there's Gears Of War and then there's Banjo Kazooie and God knows what else, and that's just on the 360 and in the space of three weeks. I mean, how am I supposed to decide what to spend my money on? I think that's pretty tough, and when was the last time we had a really exciting game? It's been quite a long time since we had an exciting game... probably GTA. We've had like six months of nothing and then along come six buses all of which want to spend your money.

Have there been any games since the original Fable's release that you've been inspired by? We noticed the 'would you kindly...' Bioshock reference in Fable II...

Molyneux: Yeah. I think there have been some great games, some of them like Bioshock have really influenced me. I thought the thing about Bioshock was the ability to tell a story without stopping you playing the game was great. I think their world was... if you set out to make an underwater world, that was a pretty good one, it was a pretty good universe that they created, that was great.

GTA IV... the characterization was jaw-dropping in my opinion. I wish they'd got rid of some of those old mechanics like 'die, repeat, die, repeat'. I think that ruined the story for me but other than that I thought it was genius characterization. I still think the way that Valve are progressing Half-Life and, you know, throwing in Portal and everything, that was again, breathtaking. I think they're great examples.

I think it's a mistake to look at something like Half-Life and say , 'They've got a gravity-gun, we should do something with gravity-guns,' I think that, again, you'd drive yourself mad. What I do though, is to say, 'God that made me feel so good...'

The story of Portal made me feel so good. The puzzles, to be honest with you... yeah, it was quite cool and gimmicky, but it was her that made it, and inspiration like that is, "yeah, a story really can carry a mechanic". That's how I prefer to be inspired, thinking about how it affects me rather than worrying about, you know, they've got this and I should have that.

It feels like you've been working on Fable forver now. Do you feel like working on more or something new?

Molyneux: Lionhead was established to do things that surprise people. Going from Black & White to Fable, they seem like completely opposite ends of the spectrum actually. You know, there are bits of Black & White in Fable, you just don't recognise them. The dog is Black & White... the creature's no longer standing on two legs, it's down on the ground and all that AI is still there.

But I think one of our mantras is to surprise people and to innovate and not to take establishment and that means doing more than Fable. And yeah, we are working on stuff that I think will surprise you. I think the next Fable should surprise you as much as anything else but Lionhead isn't defined just by Fable, it just so happens that that's what you're all focusing on at the moment. You're probably going to say the same thing about the next experience that we come out with.

Fable II Pub Games has obviously encountered a big, game-breaking bug that lets players easily mass in-game cash. How worried are you that this will upset the balance of the final full-release game?

Molyneux: I'm not particularly upset by it, I mean, it's a shame that the exploit was in there... it was such an easy exploit. There is a lot to spend this gold on. A hell of a lot to spend this gold on. You know, I think the value of all the unique items in the world is over twenty million in Fable. And I am pretty sure, although I'm not absolutely sure, that importing such a vast amount into the Fable world affects your character. I'm not sure, that may have been thrown in at the end, but we were thinking about having a 'you obviously cheated' mechanic.

Your teeth go brown?
Your teeth go black, yeah! So every time you smile people run away! But you're a millionaire! [laughs]

Andy Robinson