Today on Steam Early Access, designer Peter Molyneux and his company 22 Cans released a new game: Godus Wars.
But wait, you may wonder, did they ever even finish making the first Godus, which was crowdfunded way back in 2012 but still isn’t quite there yet? No. As the Steam page explains:
With the release of Godus Wars, combat finally makes it’s full introduction into the Godus universe. Peter has always considered Godus being two games: one tranquil, peaceful and the other war-like with bloody battles taking place across the unique lands.
And then there were two. Godus Wars is essentially an iteration on the game Molyneux and his team have been promising for years now. Although right now it will solely let you play RTS-style battles against enemy AIs, this is meant to establish groundwork for the PVP multiplayer that 22 Cans originally said would be a key feature of their god game. Current Godus owners get it as a free update; other people can buy a $US15 ($21) package that includes both Godus Wars and everything else they have built in Godus so far.
This might be the first time Peter Molyneux has ever released a game without hyping it up first. For more on what Molyneux is doing these days, read this interview he did recently with Eurogamer.
Comments
21 responses to “Peter Molyneux Releases Another Godus Game”
Bollocks. I love Molyneux, I really do, but you can’t cry about being called a liar and then outright and obviously put lies in your official releases.
2017: Peter has always considered Godus being three games: one tranquil and peaceful, one war-like and one with race cars.
I’ll wait for the race war game.
oh man I would too but I heard the turn-based adaptation of his zombie survival ice hockey Godus game is gonna be way better. All aboard the hype train!
Featuring Kinect 3.0 right?
2018: Peter has always considered Godus being four games: one tranquil and peaceful, one war-like ,one with race cars, and one where you have to provide the soundtrack to old silent movies.
I really don’t like Molyneux. Always over-promises, always under-delivers. Every. Single. Game. For the last decade and maybe even beyond. Only Populous could really be called a good game of his. Some might argue Fable series was good but I never enjoyed them, and again they were examples of over promising but under delivering, mainly the original.
That’s a little unfair. Populous, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Magic Carpet, Black & White… he’s made some really excellent games. The Fable games weren’t bad, either, even if disappointing compared to his promises and not to your taste.
I agree that his hype has gotten way out of control, but you can’t take away from his past achievements because of that.
Black and White is an example of him over promising, then under delivering. The game had so much potential, then just felt… flat. Was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game at the time, but it just didnt deliver on expectations. There are only so many times you can watch your avatar throw poop at the enemy.
Fable was broadly the same. Just didnt quite get over the line to deliver on expectations. In both instances the games were shorter than expected, and shallower than expected, and no amount of graphical wizardry could change that.
Having said that, I still keep buying his stuff. What IS there is still better than most of the dross that hits the market.
Ok yes that was a little unfair. Perhaps it would’ve been more accurate of me to say he’s a shadow of his former self. He’s not made any decent games in a decade (subjective I know, I didn’t enjoy Fable)
Populous 2 was also pretty good, although the third was less impressive. Powermonger was OK as long as you ignore the easy win strategy. (Take over villages in ascending order of size and recruit them all.)
I liked Fable & Fable 2 but Fable 3 was pretty poor and B&W was probably the first major game where his modern tendency to over-promise really kicked in.
As for Godus – bought it, regretted doing so. At least he’s including the new version free for owners of the original. Is it still a horrible clickfest? Haven’t checked it for ages….
Why MS chose somebody with such a track record for failing to deliver to head up their games division I have no idea. In any case, since the Curiousity hoax I wouldn’t trust him to wake up in the morning.
I loved Fable 1. I was disappointed with the length (and to an extent, the depth) but I can’t think of a single game since then that I haven’t been disappointed with in those areas aside from The Last Of Us. Fable 2 improved on it in many ways but I think maybe misstepped in revealing some of the mystery of that world, and pushing the time period forward too far that the world seemed less fantastical.
I think the sort of unrealised potential of Fable 1 was a massive part of its appeal. I can’t think of a single game that engaged my imagination more than that game. When I see fences or walled off areas in other games I get frustrated, but there was something about that world that made me excited to look through the trees or across lakes and wonder what could be over there. I know that lack of delivery, that linearity, should be a bad thing, but for me it was engrossing.
I think that that potential is shared in games like Destiny. Hugely flawed, but there’s something about that world that makes you dream about the sequels, where you might learn more or get to see more. That sort of world-building isn’t luck, it’s the mark of a well thought out, unique setting.
A true sequel to the original Fable games (Less so Fable 3, because jesus christ) would be on the top of my list of things that would make me make the leap to Xbox One.
Remember the guy that won the Curiosity Cube? Yeah he was forgotten. Don’t trust Peter for his promises.
But, but, but..
What about the winner of Curiosity – Bryan Henderson?!
Bryan is featured in Godus Wars! He can be seen as an opposing deity on one of the continents.
Well not exactly “Life-Changing” as promised aye?
Is he getting any of that life changing money? =P
I’m not really a Molyneux super-fan or someone who’s been burnt by him enough to loathe him.
But between this and the Witness chatter, we make it bloody difficult for the auteur/single-vision type of game design to be at discussed at all (call it ‘Hype’ if you want).
Every so often, we kick around the embargo issue. God forbid I look like I’m picking on poor defense-less AAA games, but I take more of an issue with 2K effectively using critics as advertising by lifting their embargo on XCOM2 reviews so early.
I know I’m not really explaining my POV that well but yeah, very hard for games like Godus before it even gets a fair go.
A complaint that a developer lifted embargo too early… that’s a new one.
We’ve all met people like him – the one’s who are genuinely oblivious to their own bs. You can’t reason with them, you can’t convince them they’re wrong, you just have to remember to never believe a single word that escapes their big fat mouth.
Molyneux is an inspired innovator who needs someone with business savvy to keep him under control.
ie. he needs a wozniak to his jobs.
Each of his awesome games were probably successful due to constraints placed on him eg. hardware limitations, or other people exerting pressure.
This is a guy who should never have a large sum of other people’s cash to dispose of.
Not unlike George Lucas in many ways.
It’s really sad to see people ignore what Molyneux means in the grand scheme of things. So many people are basically complaining they aren’t treated like a number or a potential sale. So many people are complaining about this one guy who wants to do things that extend his grasp because they’re disappointed when he fails?
Guy says he WANTS to do some great stuff with his game, hope it’s possible – crowd cheers. Guy says things have changed during development, scope is altered. People respond by saying they hate him and begin evaluating his job performance despite holding no relevant information. Upon discovering their lack of knowledge, they begin evaluating him on a series of arbitrary moral viewpoints with dubious legitimacy since you can state objectivity without giving an explanation. It’s just baffling to see this on such a grand scale, when every single game likely follows a similar process that just isn’t public knowledge.
There is no one like this. Every creator who doesn’t toe the line, who doesn’t outright worship bend and conform to the expectations of an undereducated but overactive consumer base is at some point demolished by people trying to prove that their distaste for him should actually be considered an objective truth by everyone. The auteurs that brought us great experiences that actually felt like the vision of an individual are dying – they simply can’t contend or communicate with an audience so concerned with establishing objective moral judgement and not so much about playing new games that defy and not simply adhere to our expectations.
I don’t care that he’s wrong half the time, lots of people are and if you’re educated in the basic conventions of media and marketing – how could you be angered by basic insincere promotion beyond anything else that exists today? There are criticisms but they can hardly define his life’s work. I want the guy who’s constantly reaching for the sun, trying to create the greatness he sees in his head to stay – even if he’s wrong sometimes. I feel like there aren’t enough of those hopeless dreamers in this industry anymore who take us to new, genuine, human places that can actually inform support or comment on our culture. There’s an air of cynicism that permeates even the most earnest of interactive experiences today, I actually want at least 1/1000 games to have a smidgeon the wonder, naïveté and endearment games like Populous and Black and White brought with them. That stuff is sorely missing today. The way we react to these people is making them a continually endangered species
I would take a dozen Molyneuxs who fall short but reach for the stars over the same number of Assassin’s Creeds or Call Of Duty games that have played it safe and turned making art into an assembly line of mediocrity.
From the Eurogamer article:
“The only thing I can do is hunker down and strip myself back to what I really am, which is someone who just loves what he does with a passion that is often misinterpreted by people.”
It’s this and every other quote like it that really makes me dislike Molyneux as a person. He will admit to anything but lying, and he twists language better than most politicians without batting an eyelid. It’s impossible for me to tell if he’s doing it deliberately or unconsciously, which is all the more frustrating.