Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Okay, just one more Rezzed announcement, perhaps: Peter Molyneux will be speaking to the assembled Rezzed audience about 22 Cans, the Curiosity app, and likely much more, at 4pm on Friday 6th July. That’s just the hyperbolic cherry on top of all the other superb stuff that’s going on at our event in Brighton, on the 6th and 7th of July. As well as hearing Mr Molyneux talk about his plans now that he’s free of Microsoft, there are tonnes of playable games, and even some core Hivemind nodes wandering about. You should probably be there.

As revealed by The Big K, Molyneux – creator of games like Magic Carpet, Syndicate, Black & White, The Movies, and Fable – is leaving Microsoft-owned Lionhead to join a start-up company. The former Bullfrogger, who was head of Microsoft Studios in Europe, said: “It is with mixed emotions that I made the decision to leave Microsoft and Lionhead Studios, the company that I co-founded in 1997, at the conclusion of development of Fable: The Journey… However, I felt the time was right to pursue a new independent venture.” He will also act as a creative consultant on Fable’s arm-waving variant for the Kinect.

Molyneux joins a new Guildford-based company, 22 Cans, which Molyneux has described as “something really amazing, scary and brave”. This new company was founded by Lionhead’s former chief technical officer Tim Rance, whose credits include Populous, Black & White, and Fable. They probably plan to make games.

Peter Molyneux, who was speaking to IGN about his BAFTA Fellowship win earlier this week, has said he thinks Minecraft is the game of the decade. More accurately, he said this in response to IGN’s suggestion that Minecraft represent a hallmark of a new golden age of gaming: “I think Minecraft’s the best thing I’ve played in the last ten years, and what’s so brilliant about it – and I’ve met Markus and he’s a real inspirational person – he did everything on his own, and I think how brilliant and inspirational that is, to not need the full force of publishers and marketing people. He did everything on his own. I agree with you about it being a golden age – there’s so much choice, and I feel there’s so many opportunities as well.”

The Fable 3 demonstration starts a little late, due to Peter Molyneux being a little too reliant on his SatNav. Which is the sort of thing which strikes me as a workable critique of the “bread-crumb” hand-holding in Fable 2, but we’re probably denying the existence of that non-PC Game. Which is going to make writing about the first public European showing of Fable III, it brings directly to mind its direct prequel.
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I’m currently recovering from what East Coast Rail laughably calls a train journey from Newcastle to London, but is in fact three hours of sweatbox hell on a locomotive where they’ve taken the time to install wifi but felt air conditioning was an obscene luxury. I was in Newcastle for the GameHorizon conference, which is very much a business thing, but was also attended by the likes of Mark Rein, Charles Cecil and, the man I’m about to quote at length, Peter Molyneux. Here’s what he thinks of his own back catalogue.
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Rumours are afoot that Fable III may be making its way to the PC. During Lionhead head Peter Molyneux’s GDC chat with Gamespot yesterday, he referred to “platforms” for the new game in the plural, and that doesn’t really leave a lot of options. The Microsoft-owned developer is not particularly likely to aid their competition with a PS3 or Wii version (although you’d have to think a Wii port of the Fable series would be a 400ft golden egg-laying goose made of diamonds), which leaves the PC as the only viable Microsoft-supported place for the game to be. The original Fable made it to the PC after a lengthy delay, although Fable II stayed exclusively on the wheezing white crate. You can see him drop the hint on the video we’ve tucked in below. And even more clues too.

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VG247 have been talking to shy and reclusive game developer Peter Molyneux about Lionhead’s ambitions. They want to tell the greatest story ever. The developer said:

“The greatest story ever told? I think it’s going to be in a computer game. And I think that if I play the greatest story ever told in the same game as you play it, your greatest story is going to be different to my greatest story. And that is power.”

Blimey. I hate stories, me. Just give me a box of toys. But what about you?

I’ve spent the week doing a couple of short, if dense interviews with major gaming figures for the Guardian Online. First one’s up, where I talk to Peter Molyneux about the idea of name-creators, why there hasn’t been a refresh of them for a long time, where they may arise and why he hopes they do arrive. The quote the Guardian chose to open on: “I’ve been credited unduly”.