Molyneux lists Fable II imperfections, says he overhyped Fable I

By Patrick Garratt

Speaking to VG247, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has listed a string of minor imperfections that niggle him about Fable II, saying previous statements about elements not being perfect in the game are merely borne from honesty.

“When someone says to me, ‘Are you completely happy with Fable II?’, I have to turn round to them and say, ‘I’ve got a list in my own head, and indeed on bits of paper, of things that fall below a bar in my head.’

“I wish we had two more bones in the top lip of each character so their mouths could form the words a little bit better. I wish they blinked more. I wish the sun’s God rays were a little less harsh in the early sunset. I wish the leaves were just fractionally smaller, because they tend to be a little bit large for trees,” he said.

“It’s a list of trivial little things where, perhaps if you bring them all together it brings down the game a fraction. And that’s what I mean by that. I don’t think anybody in this world, whether you be a reviewer or someone who’s [worked in the industry for a long time], can sit looking at Fable [II] and say, ‘That is a perfect game set in a perfect world.’ Because it’s not.

“And I don’t know many games that are, or any games that are. And this is me being quite open and frank and honest about it.”

The developer said he’s being open about what he perceives to be as faults with Fable II as he caused “hype” in the run up to the first game.

“I’m not a PR person,” he said. “I may seem like a PR person because I’m in the press a lot, but I’m not. And when people like yourself or fans ask me about the game, I try to be as honest as possible.

I think especially after Fable 1, where to a certain extent people were right in believing that I got too excited about the game and that excitement came through as hype. It wasn’t meant as hype, and obviously the result was hype, but I didn’t mean to be dishonest or anything like that: I truly believed what i was saying.

I think this time round, I need to be more balanced.”

Fable II ships on October 24.