Peter Molyneux is back from the beyond and he's creating a new god sim. The game in question is Masters Of Albion, which now has a page on Steam. In development at the 22cans studio that Molyneux founded in 2012, it looks like a mix of Populous and Black & White with playful, DIY visuals and a loose tower defense format where monsters attack your villages at night. Here's the first trailer.
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“Albion’s story is one of power and consequence, a rich and deep narrative set in a world filled with quests and moral choices,” the announcement text explains. “Navigate through intrigues and plots: kings come and go, lords shake your hand and stab you in the back, and people work like dogs and are treated no better.”
“Empowered by ancient and divine powers, you face an enemy unlike any seen in hundreds of years,” the book continues. “Magic returns to the hills and halls of Albion, threatening to destroy the very foundations of society. Uncover the mystery of the mages, defeat the enemy that lurks in the night, and overcome a sorcery that could kill us all.”
Here's what that means in practice: By day, you'll build and manage villages using an old-school Bullfrog hand cursor with a certain air of mischief. Dragging, dropping, and zooming, you'll oversee everything from designing weapons (not-so-effective bread swords) to stacking house segments (be careful not to drop them – this game has real physics) to laying out roads and fortifications.
You'll also have to “carry out the orders of rival factions: food for the people, clothes for the lords, weapons and armor for the king.” City progression seems to revolve around the Arcanum, where you can trade favors for new blocks, product parts, and magical powers.
Once the sun goes down, it's time to play Splat The Undead. You can hire and control heroes to take down the creatures of the night in person, or rain hell down on them from turrets, but it seems like a lot more fun to fry them with spells from your hand cursor. Owning heroes is also how you'll explore the game's open world, it seems, by founding new villages and completing treasure quests.
Overall, it looks pretty promising. It may sound petty, but I never thought I'd describe a new Molyneux game as promising in this year of 2024. I particularly like the Wes Anderson-esque viewing perspective. To address the various elephants in the room, Masters Of Albion is noticeably free of questionable monetization mechanics, and most of the features seem perfectly feasible. No hype acorns so far.
Small update – Graham just pointed out to me that this appears to reuse some systems from Legacy, Molyneux's previous blockchain game, which racked up tens of millions of pounds in cryptocurrency sales ahead of its 2023 launch. Masters Of Albion doesn't appear to contain any web3.
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