Throughout final night timeβs Gamescom Opening Night time Reside, veteran developer Peter Molyneux took to the stage to correctly reveal his newest undertaking, a god recreation referred to as Masters of Albion. Whereas there was lots about it thatβs designed to remind individuals of basic Fable, it appears the sport additionally bears some similarities to Molyneuxβs ill-fated blockchain recreation, Legacy.
For a little bit of context, Legacy was introduced again in 2021 by Molyneux and his firm 22cans, with the pitch being that it was a blockchain-based enterprise sim by which gamers would purchase NFT βplotsβ of land utilizing cryptocurrency, as, to paraphrase Grandpa Simpson, was a little bit of a mode on the time. The sport was launched late final 12 months, and remains to be a stay factor, even when the NFT bubble it was designed to captilise on fell flat.
Enter Masters of Albion final night time, which, whereas it at present appears freed from any precise blockchain or web3 mechanics based mostly on what was proven, does look to intergrate some similarsystems and mechanics to Legacy when it comes to what you do throughout the day.
On this a part of MoA, Molnueux stated within the reveal, βyouβre tasked with constructing the city up, gaining assets, and incomes cash.β Legacy’s description, in the meantime, states it duties gamers to: “design and manufacture your individual merchandise, promote and commerce in the marketplace and maximise your earnings”.
When you take a look at the product creation little bit of Legacy after which the way in which you “design and manufacture merchandise” in Masters of Albion – that is the bit that allows you to feed individuals rats and create bread swords – thereβs the same system/UI in place facilitated by a round pedestal surrounded by stuff so as to add. Each video games share a give attention to managing employees as they create items from a top-down perspective that includes a whole lot of mouse-click dragging and dropping through a pointer that you may unlock upgrades/powers for as you play.
The buildings you place up look to be cut up into comparable single ground segments that go well with being stacked on high of one another to create, through an “revolutionary block system”. The bits of paper used to point how orders of assets are progressing in Masters of Albion additionally look to be doing the identical job because the indicators indicating useful resource creation progress in Legacy.
With all of that stated, within the occasion these components do draw inspiration from Legacy, there’d be nothing fallacious with that on the floor degree, as transforming established constructing blocks is one thing that options in a whole lot of video games fairly frequently, particularly in conditions when it is sensible to avoid wasting time and assets throughout the growth course of.
Plus, Masters of Albionβs capacity to allow you to take direct management of a personality in an effort to smash some undead and discover the open-world a bit does appear to be it will help in serving to the Fable-esque medieval artwork model and narrative components set it other than the cartoony capitalism that drives Legacyβs gameplay.
Masters of Albion will probably be popping out for PC and console, with Molyneux working alongside Fable vets like Russell Shaw, Iain Wright, and Mark Healey on the self-funded undertaking.