Interview: Peter Molyneux on Fable 2

Posted by Adam Hartley on Sun 19 Oct 2008

Britain's most celebrated games developer wants to make games that make you feel "very f***ing cool"

T3 was recently treated to a night of medieval-style feasting and merriment with none other than one of the UK's most successful videogame designers, Mr. Peter Molyneux (OBE) - the brains behind such classics as Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Black & White and, more recently, The Movies and Fable.

Peter and his team at Lionhead Studios have recently put the finishing touches to the Xbox 360 masterpiece that is Fable 2. We quizzed our 'new favourite millionaire bessie-mate' about his game (which, from our initial play-testing, might just end up being the definitive role-playing game of 2008).

T3: It's been over three years in development, so what's in store Peter?

Peter Molyneux: Fable 2 is a role-playing game (RPG), which are traditionally very 'techie'.

Consider the idea of being a casual gamer, where you might play one game a year or maybe not even that, then the last genre you will probably consider is the RPG. Our passion at Lionhead was to create an RPG that anybody could play. So really, the story behind Fable is about you becoming a hero. And you becoming whatever hero you want to be, because this is what computer games can do for you these days. You don't just have to be the good guy and if you want to be mean and nasty and vicious and evil you can be. That's what the core of this is.

We did Fable 1, which could have been played by the casual gamer, but only just, because they would run up against a wall, or whatever. And when it came to something like combat, it was just out of the question!

So our real passion was to try and counter that. Part of countering that was to work on the controls, how easy it was to fight and so on. But another way is about the subject matter of what we are dealing with here. Are we dealing with high fantasy? Or are we dealing with something that you and I can kind of recognise? We spent a long time looking at that, so the first thing we came up with was using a bit of technology that we first used over six years ago in Black and White - a piece of technology that got us into the Guinness Book of Records - trying to create something that is alive. And what we did is to create an in-game dog.

T3: What's so new or different about a dog?

Peter Molyneux: Well, normally, if you were going to have characters in computer games it would be a flying pink thing, or an elf, or something ridiculous like this...but this is just a dog. So as soon as somebody plays this that doesn't play computer games, they recognise it as a dog. And that means if I start telling a story around you being a hero, using the dog to help tell the story, it becomes very, very unique. Basically, there is a vast amount of tech in this game, but it is shown to you in a very clear, casual way.

For example, if you look at the screen, RPGs traditionally have mini-maps in the corner, they have magic bars, health bars, stamina, dexterity, blah, blah, blah...dotted all over the screen. What you get in Fable 2 is this [indicates screen showing a beautiful vista of a golden sunset in the in-game world]. If you need to know where to go then you just follow the golden trail in the game. I don't burden you with the 'techy-ness' of normal computer games.

T3: So in what other ways does it differ to hardcore RPGs such as Oblivion?

Peter Molyneux: Well, Oblivion was a fantastic achievement. But for me, that was a true 'blood and guts' RPG. There was an initial dungeon that you went through that was fantastic - but then you came out into that open world, and I just thought: "What the hell do you do now? Where do you go? Who am I? What do I stand for? Who am I against?" And there was this huge, vast rolling story. And to finish Oblivion would take sixty or seventy hours.

Now for me, as a designer, if I hear 'sixty or seventy hours', then in my mind that is the equivalent of giving me a book that is twenty thousand pages long. And if I said to you, here's a fantastic book, go and read that... Are you likely to finish a twenty thousand page book? No.

So in Fable 2, the story lasts thirteen to fourteen hours and by the end of that story what you are like, what you look like and how the world treats you is completely up to you. If you want to be evil or good or kind or cruel, then that's totally up to you. With Oblivion it was basically all about me killing things.

T3: But it is still an 'open world' type game? The player can do what they like?

Peter Molyneux: With Fable 2 if you want to spend three hours chatting up women and then getting married and having protected (or unprotected) sex and starting a family any buying a house and decorating that house, then you can do that. What I'm trying to give you - as either a casual or a core gamer - is freedom.

This is purely a design ethos. You have the freedom to say "I don't want to go and explore" as you walk along the 'Yellow Brick Road' style golden path in the game. But if you are someone that says, "hey, I wonder what happens if I go over here," then you can do. Fable 2 is a game that allows you to do these kinds of things that you have just never been able to do before in computer games.

In Oblivion you were just a hero. You couldn't do anything else, other than be a hero. In Fable 2 if you want to be a gigolo and go out and chat up everybody in the world, and have three wives (or 'one in every port') and have sex all over the place, then fine! Of course, you will have consequences to that. You might pick up a social disease. You might end up getting married twice and having your two wives meet and then find yourself in a divorce situation, in which you lose half of your money. But just imagine playing a game where all of those things were actually possible. It is important to give those people that are NOT hardcore gamers that freedom, instead of the usual killing skeletons and whatever else...

T3: Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind the world [Albion] in the game?

Peter Molyneux: A lot of computer games are set in space or in these weird and wonderful universes that have got floating castles and floating islands and so on, and I just thought (and it really all comes down to this basic thought): "how can we get more people to play the game?"

Bottom line - I'm just being greedy!

So why not base a role-playing game on something that we kind of 'semi' know about? Okay, yeah, this [indicates screen] is a fantasy world. Absolutely. But if you think of reality on this side, and fantasy on that side then this is not way over on the fantasy side...Your dog cannot wag his tail at 300mph and fly through the air. You're not a superhero that flies. You start this game as a little kid and you grow up and over the course of the game you discover what it is like to be powerful.

Basing the game on European folklore, it is absolutely fascinating because it always has a dark side. Jack and the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella for example, they are all actually quite dark. The world of Albion is a place that will remind you of England. It will kind of remind you of, for example, what York Minster looked like a thousand years ago. Maybe [grins].

T3: What about buying and selling property in the game?

Peter Molyneux: Yeah. It is a simple mechanic. And again, you don't have to do this. But I want you to feel rich. I want you to feel wealthy. I want you to feel like you own stuff...Now in normal role-playing games all you can buy is swords, weapons and clothing. And the clothing you can buy is always tied to this stuff called 'armour value'. In this game the clothing you wear doesn't affect the gameplay, we just want you to look and feel unique.

T3: So is the idea that you want gamers play through the single player storyline first?

Peter Molyneux: Not really. I would prefer you to play this game and totally be yourself. And if you want to look like this [indicates a rather eccentrically attired young man] then you can do. And this is a completely random hero, by the way. There are millions of combinations. But you will find that the way you look will cause people in the world to treat you differently.

So that's one side to it. But the other side to it is to say: "Okay, if I have now got a lot of money, so why don't I buy this coach-house here?" Which you can do. And you can then run it as a business. It's very simple. You can buy every single one of the houses you can see in the game (should you have enough money). You can decide, if you wanted to, to move your entire family into anywhere you like in Albion. We have a full family simulation in the game. Your wife would be happy, because she is climbing up the social ladder (and she's always going to be greedy for a better place...).

And why stop there? Why shouldn't I allow you to buy that castle at the top of the hill? Buying everything in the world, if you WANT to feel what it is like to be wealthy and rich, that should be as important in the game as questing and hero'ing and killing enemies, or whatever...

T3: I don't suppose you can have a property market crash in the game?

Peter Molyneux: There is a full economic simulation in here, so yes. You can totally ruin the economy! This is what is totally different and unique about Fable 2, as it is based on a simulation. Almost every game I know is based upon what are called 'scripts' - so that if you do X, then Y always happens. You cannot bend the rules. Whereas here, because this is based on a simulation, if you do X, then it depends on what Y, Z, A, W and B are also doing.

I'll give you an example, one of the guys that got an early review copy bought this pub here [indicates screen] and, instead of doing what a lot of other people did - which was buy the pub and put the price of the beer up - he gave away all the beer for free. So everybody in the town got completely drunk! He then went around and extorted money from everybody in the place, because they were plastered. And he 'invented' that gameplay. I didn't even think, as the designer, that that was even possible - and that is what is so fascinating about Fable 2.

You can watch that person over there [points to non-player character], which is a piece of artificial intelligence (AI) walking across to the pub. And he is walking across there because he probably wants a drink, he probably knows how much the beer is in the pub, and he may even meet that girl over here and hit it off and end up marrying her. And you can just sit and watch all of this going on. If you like.

T3: What about the combat in the game? How is that different to traditional RPGs?

Peter Molyneux: Have you ever sat and watched someone play an arcade fighting game? If so, you know how fantastic they look. They do all the moves and you watch them and think: "God, I wish I could do that!" And they look like they are having a lot of fun. But then you pick up the joystick and you start playing it and you look stupid and you end up doing the same move over and over and over again. So my dream as a game designer is simply this: To make. You. Feel. F***ing. Cool.

When you are playing this game. The blue button uses your sword, the yellow button uses your gun and the red button uses magic. It is as simple as that. Initially you can get through a battle just bashing the blue button, which I guarantee is what you will do when you first start playing the game. Then, after a while, you begin to experiment and discover new ways of holding the buttons down and combining them. And that is where this 'accessibility' is really important. Feeling like you don't look stupid when you play the game is super important to me. Everybody who starts Fable 2 will be able to finish it, whether or not they have played computer games before. Feeling cool and feeling good about yourself while playing it is also really important.

Now what is fascinating is that you can play Fable 2 in co-op - either on the same machine or over Xbox LIVE - and it is only when you see someone else play that you really realise the power of the combat system, because if I come into your world and say "hey, watch me fight," and I do things that you have never seen yourself do, that is really deep and really important. So even the most die-hard gamer will not find limits to the combat.

T3: You talk about hardcore gamers and casual gamers - is that a useful distinction anymore?

Peter Molyneux: Well one of the passions we had with Fable 2 was to not make it a distinction. If you look at the market, there are a vast number of games made for 'casual' gamers. More than ever before. Also, an enormous number of games...tens of millions of dollars... are spent on making games for core gamers. Yet there are very few games where they really come together.

Now I would say that Zelda was one of those rare games. I could give it to my wife and she could stumble through it... (and Ocarina of Time was actually really tough in places!) but that is pretty rare. It is rare to think that she could play a hardcore gamers game and enjoy it as much as the hardcore gamer.

And if we don't start bringing these two together then eventually someone is going to suffer - either the casual gamers or the core gamers. Most likely the core gamers. If you say to those guys: "Hey, the next exciting thing you are going to play is Wii Sports," then they are gonna say, "err, no thank you..."

Lionhead's Fable 2 is (finally) out for Microsoft Xbox 360 on 24th October, 2008