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Masters of Albion is – in theory – Peter Molyneux’s last game, and in many ways feels like an amalgamation of his greatest hits. There’s the signature God Hand mechanic, reminiscent of Black & White. There’s Dungeon Keeper’s possession, reimagined and revitalized for a modern audience. But, perhaps most importantly, there’s Fable’s charm – the quirky British humor that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Monty Python or Fawlty Towers sketch. That ‘ye olde Britishness’ is why I immediately felt at home with Masters of Albion – it’s instantly familiar, yet refreshingly new.
Having launched in Early Access earlier this year, Masters of Albion is in a bit of an odd state. There’s a clear interest in god games with the uptick in interest around strategy games more generally, and Playground Games’ Fable reboot has brought Molyneux’s classic franchise back into the spotlight. Yet, 22cans’ latest sits at a middling 64% on Steam, earning it the title of ‘mixed.’ Reviews complain about issues with performance and that the core mechanics grow boring over time. “People were saying this is a glorified sandwich maker,” Molyneux tells me. The reviews reflect that sentiment.
New Beginnings – dubbed ‘Masters of Albion 2.0’ – is a colossal, ground-up rework of several of the game’s core systems. “There are a crazy number of changes,” Molyneux smiles, highlighting that they’re in response to “amazing community feedback.” He describes the 1.0 launch as being “like a sketch. Now we want to turn it into a painting.”
Let’s start with performance. Masters of Albion has struggled since launch, with crashes, stuttering, and general issues causing serious problems. Most of the bad reviews discuss poor optimization, even on higher-end PCs. Molyneux tells me that the performance was the team’s first fix, noting that “the first big feedback we got was that performance wasn’t good enough, and of course, [the community] was right.”
The game was released at 30 frames per second, but after “ripping out” the old system, it now runs at over 60fps. “Every artist had to redo pretty much every asset that we’ve got,” he recalls. The result, however, is improved performance, which Molyneux describes as “a huge win.”
From here, the team decided to target the actual gameplay itself, working out how it all “fits together.” Several critical reviews complain of a lack of things to do, especially at night, where the fight sequences felt like they were growing too repetitive. “We could have added more creatures; we could have increased the damage that certain things do,” he muses. “But I thought that it needed something a bit more radical.”
Now, when the fight begins at night, you’ll have challenges to complete, which will earn you buff cards. These, in turn, can be used to improve your god hand and its abilities via the Arcadium, which has also undergone a complete revamp. Essentially the game’s primary progression system, Molyneux notes that it “wasn’t particularly exciting,” and has since been replaced with a “card collecting metaphor.”
You collect your buff cards during the evening, and use them to level up your powers. Your choices, however, have consequences. Fable’s alignment system is iconic, and 22cans has finally brought it to Masters of Albion. Depending on the power you choose, you’ll start to trend towards good or evil, and that transcends the Arcadium. How well you treat your workers and how much profit you take from your various deliveries all feed into this morality system, determining which type of hero (or villain) you’ll become.
More generally, the order system itself needed what Molyneux describes as “a complete overhaul,” acknowledging that it was “a little bit tedious.” 22cans has introduced Order Givers, who have their own unique “narrative arc” to make the world feel a bit more realized and help tasks feel more meaningful versus repetitive chores.
This feeds into a wider attempt to make the Albion feel more like a living, breathing space versus a collection of houses and buildings. I felt that, in the 1.0 version, the God Hand itself (and the player by proxy) felt a little disconnected from everything – it’s certainly omnipresent as it should be, but it didn’t feel like it quite had a place in the world itself. Now, as you zoom through fields, the grass will part for you, and the trees swish whenever you pass by. You can also pick up villagers and place them together on benches to trigger new interactions – perhaps they’ll even fall in love. Or, you can drop them in the dunk tank and soak them. Dealer’s choice.
The overarching evil feels more prominent now, too, as the Orkenstone (the source of all things nasty) have leveled up. “Every night you can visually see that the land of Albion is changing because this corruption is spreading out. Anything that the corruption touches will wither: if it reaches your crops, they’ll wither.” These areas of corruption will lock off parts of the map at nighttime, damaging anyone who crosses into them, and will add to the game’s overall stakes.
While I really enjoyed Masters of Albion at launch, all of these changes are incredibly welcome. It feels like it brings the game closer to the vision that I – and no doubt many others – had for it, and really infuses a bit more of that Molyneux goodness into it. The learnings from Fable, Black & White, and Dungeon Keeper are clear here, and early access gives 22cans time to realize them, and react to the community more generally.
I ask Molyneux what launching in early access has been like: this is, after all, the first time he’s ever done it. “I find it a little confusing as to what early access is, because a lot of the time it seems that the community is being used to fix bugs,” he muses. That’s not what 22cans wants. “Whereas my dream is: we want to make something that’s great. We’re not quite there yet, but if you want to make something great, you need to get feedback. That’s exactly what we’ve done.
“Most of the features that we’ve added here are community-led. If you get people who are willing, unbelievably, to give their time up and say ‘well this works and this doesn’t,’ you owe it to them to react in a brave way. That’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Masters of Albion’s New Beginnings update is live right now. You can play the game over on Steam.
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