Masters of Albion, the new God game from 22cans, may well be “the culmination” of legendary developer Peter Molyneux’s career to date, but we may not see its end for many years to come — due to it being the first part of a planned trilogy.
“So this is an epic,” Molyneux tells IGN. “We are thinking about three epic chapters, I suppose you'd call them. Then what we'll be releasing into early access will be chapter one, and it's going to take us quite a few years to get to chapter three.”
“But this chapter one, it has a story. It starts as a classic story of a hero coming and finding his power. There was an adversary who was doing something awful. There was a confrontation. It's a classic. This first chapter is a classic beat of that narrative story. There's going to be love, loss, hate, and betrayal in that first episode of the story. So it is a complete game. We are just thinking bigger rather than, right, this is the game. That's it. We've always been thinking about this bigger story.”
It’s ambitious, a word that has followed Molyneux around for much of his career, whether that be the technologically driven Project Milo, or the experimental Curiosity – What's Inside the Cube? While some of these projects may not have fulfilled their initial promise, many of the British developer’s games have become favourites over the decades. Not least, Fable, of which Molyneux compares in narrative structure to Masters of Albion.
“If you think of Fable, there was Fable 1,” says Molyneux. “We were always thinking when we were thinking of Fable; right, we want time to move on a lot, and so the next issue of Fable is hundreds of years in the future. We thought of that before we even finished Fable 1.
“Whereas something like Black & White, we didn't really think beyond Black & White 2. So when we came to Black and White 2, that felt a little bit clumsy because there wasn't a continuation. So Masters of Albion will finish on a huge… well, I can't say anything. There is a hint in the gameplay trailer at the very end.”
The best laid plans are all well and good, but Molyneux is also fully aware that for two more chapters of the Masters of Albion series to be made, there needs to be both hunger from its audience, and the financial heft to do so.
“My overall desire is that Masters of Albion just brings joy to people,” Molyneux continues. “And if it brings joy to people and there are enough people, we'll definitely be going forward with Master Albion 2 and 3. But you need money to do this.”
Masters of Albion will be released on Steam on April 22, 2026. Do you plan on playing it? Let us know in the comments below. For more, you can check out more details on the god game, or read about what made watching the new Fable’s gameplay reveal so emotional for Peter Molyneux.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
