Peter Molyneux: Fable III was a trainwreck

He admits he’ll never make his perfect game

Peter Molyneux has a well-deserved reputation within the gaming industry of being an overly excitable and dramatic guy. It seems that those characteristics follow him in defeat, too. Speaking to Develop at Casual Connect, Molyneux stated that Fable III “was a trainwreck.”

Molyneux gave his two cents with regard to the creative process, saying there’s an “empirical decay” between what a developer envisions at a project’s outset, and what the final product ends up being. He applied this theory to the Fable series — the game’s that Molyneux is most well-known for. ““In my mind, as a designer, whenever I’m making a game I have this perfect jewel in mind,” he told Develop. “Fable for me was this beautiful, incredible, amusing, funny, artistic, wonderful gem of a game that anyone could play, that tugged on the heartstrings and that was instantly engaging,” he said.

However, he had no problem admitting his shortcomings. “The gem that was in my mind has never come to be; it’s always flawed in some way. I thought Fable I – when you consider that it was the first game I ever did of that type — wasn’t bad. It was hugely flawed in some senses, but it wasn’t bad.”

He continued “I think Fable II was a step in the right direction. I think Fable III was a trainwreck. It was built to be much bigger than what it was constrained to be. If I had my time again, I’d take the advances we made from Fable I to Fable II, I’d make the same advances from Fable II to Fable III and spend another entire year working on Fable III. But would it be that perfect gem that’s in my mind? No.”

Molyneux: I’ll never make my perfect game [Develop]