One of the most surprising moments during Gamescom Opening Night Live this week was when the Fable creator and former Lionhead founder, Peter Molyneux, walked out on stage and introduced his new PC title Masters of Albion.
He's apparently got together some of the old Lionhead crew (rebranded as '22cans' and mixed with ex-Fable & Media Molecule developers) to work on this God-like game, which welcomes players to "the familiar, vast world of Albion". If the name does ring a bell, it's because Albion is obviously the same setting as the one in Fable.
Molyneux was also happy to confirm these games take place within the same world during a chat with IGN:
“Fable was set in Albion, Masters of Albion is set in Albion”
So, how is this possible? Well, it's quite easy to "get away with it" according to Molyneux - explaining how Albion "can't be copyrighted":
“[It’s] like saying if you set a game in America, you can't set any other game in America...So Albion can't be copyrighted. It's the name for England and Wales and that's how we get away with it.”
He further notes how Masters of Albion will extend and expand on the "interesting universe that Fable touched on" but insists "it's not actually Fable 5 or anything like that". There's also been a strong focus on nailing the humour in this new game, by allowing the player to do "ridiculous and funny things".
It seems there's a fair bit of inspiration from Molyneux's past hits as well such as Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Black & White. If any legal complications do come up, the team is willing to explore and resolve these issues.
Xbox is obviously working on a brand new Fable game right now which is being led by the team behind the Forza Horizon series, Playground Games - with some other teams providing support (and a new studio even being set up). It's now expected to arrive on Xbox Game Pass at some point in 2025, but there's still no release window for it.