There are few developers quite as storied as Peter Molyneux. Best-renowned as the creator of Fable and Black & White, before he was known for sprawling fantasy games he began development life with The Entrepreneur, a business sim that, unfortunately, only received two orders. There’s been peaks and troughs along that road – most notably Fable, which spurred on Microsoft’s acquisition of Lionhead – in turn meaning that Molyneux has operated at various levels within the videogame sphere. Now, with 22cans, he’s returned to those more indie-level roots, launching God game/RPG hybrid Masters of Albion in early access at a time where indie development is, potentially, at its scariest.
It’s no secret that the videogame industry is in an odd state. 2026 alone has seen waves of layoffs across studios big and small, most notably at Xbox. Steam discoverability is being pushed to its limits, with hundreds – if not thousands – of new games being added to the platform daily. While we’ve seen breakout successes like Sandfall’s Expedition 33 and smaller, co-op titles like Big Walk, operating in the indie and double-A sphere feels like it’s thankless at best, and a deathwish at worst.
I spoke to Molyneux ahead of the launch Masters of Albion’s New Beginnings update, a sweeping series of adjustments that 22cans hopes will fix some of the game’s biggest issues. While the needle firmly remains in the ‘mixed’ camp, recent reviews are now ‘mostly positive,’ with 70% being in the green. It’s a good start, but in a world where attention spans are at an all-time low and content is at an all-time high, is it enough?
I ask Molyneux what it’s like operating within the indie sphere at the moment, and he responds that it’s “very scary. You’re a small boat in this vast, vast ocean.
“There are a lot of things happening in the industry at the moment; there’s this incredibly upsetting cull of studio people. I mean, I do think the industry went a bit crazy after COVID, and all of these indie studios sprung up and some tiny indie studios became medium indie studios. But what makes it terrifying is that there are these other pulls.
“One thing that not many people are talking about is that the Chinese gaming industry is really making inroads into the West, and [Chinese developers’] ability to create unbelievable content at an incredible pace is very, very significant,” he continues. “Especially when you think that the average game – I suspect – from an indie studio, or even a medium-to-large-sized studio, can take from four to five/six years to make from concept. Chinese developers can just do it like that,” he clicks his fingers. “That’s quite terrifying.”
He also mentions AI, which he believes is ruining the idea of a “handmade game. AI is so insidious in everyone’s workflow – it’s hard to code without AI now because it’s got completion on it, line completion. It’s always there, it’s always suggesting things.
“There are a lot of moves that go on, and as a small indie studio you’re constantly looking at these bright lights that are shining, and the temptations to jump from one to another. I don’t think this is a good time, and I think sadly that the cull that we’re in the middle of at the moment has still got a long way to go, unfortunately.”
This isn’t helped by issues with discoverability. While Steam remains the primary videogame storefront on PC, it’s only now starting to adjust and improve its interfaces based on user feedback. It’s not a task I envy – how do you actually go about categorizing and promoting hundreds of thousands of games? – but one that certainly needs doing.
I ask Molyneux for his thoughts. “There’s too many titles for people to actually focus on,” he replies. “That’s the first problem. The second problem is that there is a huge cohort that no one ever reaches, because they’ll play a game on Steam – maybe they’ve got their favorite game – and they play that over and over again. They don’t pay attention to Steam.
“Discoverability, for me, is the big issue in the industry at the moment,” he laments. “There’s some really good games. I’m playing a game at the moment called Shroom and Gloom, and it was just kind of hidden away in the dusty backwaters of Steam, but it’s a really great game!
“How we solve that issue, I’m not sure. There’s just too much choice – it’s like TV at the moment. There’s too much choice for people to get their teeth into. So what you have to do is so amazing that it breaks through that discovery thing, and it’s websites like yourself that really help with that.”
Masters of Albion’s New Beginnings update is live now. You can try out the game on Steam, and I really do encourage you to. Variety is the spice of life, and trying new things broadens your horizons. That, in my opinion, is never a bad thing.
