Molyneux Interview '08: Fable II & Beyond

Our frank interview about Peter's future as a designer, how he misses PC development, Fable II, and fresh chat on the top-secret Project X - formerly known as Project Dimitri.

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Kikizo: Some high profile Lionhead staff have left over the last few years. Andy Robson your big QA guy moved on, Kareem the art lead, and of course Mark Healey and a bunch of other guys moved on to Media Molecule. [Peter enthusiastically acknowledges all our namedropping]. Has this impacted what you do in any way? Have you replaced them with better guys?

Molyneux: Well Andy Robson was... you know, I loved Andy, he was fantastic. I miss him on Fable II desperately. I think he wanted to go and spread his wings; I encourage that and try and help any way I can, and I think it's an incredibly noble thing that he's doing, that's very, very tough.

Mark, and Alex and Kareem are brilliant people; they were fantastic to work with. You know, Alex and Mark had worked with me for almost fifteen years, and again, they wanted to see what life was like on the outside. A lot of those people came and were part of these 'experimental teams' that we have at Lionhead. You know, the combat in Fable II was part of the experimental team, the interactive cut-scenes were part of the experimental team. And that sort of fosters these very bright people. So Alex was part of Fable 1, and so was Kareem. Mark wasn't so much - but he did Rag Doll Kung Fu.

And that means there are now young kids who are bubbling up. I've currently got this fantastic star called Adam Langridge, who is just amazing to work with, just really incredible. I've always loved encouraging and trying to grow people. I think there have been nine or ten start-ups from my company.

Kikizo: Which is something to be proud of, isn't it?

Molyneux: Yeah it is. And I say when anybody leaves... well, the first thing I should do as a good boss is try and persuade them to stay, but if I can't persuade them to stay, and if they realise what they're doing, and if they're not taking it trivially, I say to them, you know, "look, you're going to be a spokesman for Lionhead really!" - so it makes sense for me to help them in any way I can.

Kikizo: There's obviously a lot of quality staff there still, but what about your own time? You don't have to worry about going out of business as an independent developer, so how much of your time lately has been spent on Fable II, versus on Project Dimitri?

Molyneux: A lot of my time has been Fable II, you know, a 12-16 hour day, and that's not ideal to be honest with you, there's a couple of reasons why that has happened like that; ideally I would not be as involved as I have been. The way I think of myself is truly like an executive designer. I don't balance spreadsheets any more, I definitely don't program any more. But every idea is run past me, and I do have ideas of my own, and I push ideas through. But it's much more of a guiding role than ever before, and I want to make that even more guiding, because I think it allows people to grow as a design team and take on that responsibility. If you have someone like me there, it's almost this suffocating force, that people feel, you know, "oh my god we can't put a single thing in unless Peter's involved and has seen it first" - and I think I need to get a little big further so that people feel that they're able to do that.

Kikizo: But I mean, presumably, that other project is still bubbling along...

Molyneux: Well it's not called Project Dimitri any more. No, that was always a code name to try and fool you [smiles]...

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