Not a parody: Peter Molyneux reveals NFT business sim Legacy

Legacy release date graphic — Legacy – but why though? (Picture: Gala Games)

The next game from the creator of Fable will involve blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, because of course it will.

There was a point in time, thanks to games like Populous, Theme Park, and Fable that Peter Molyneux was regarded as one of the most famous and influential video game creators of all time.

His legacy began to crumble though, when he left the Microsoft-owned Lionhead Studios and got into controversy over the ‘life-changing’ prize promised for mobile app Curiosity: What’s Inside The Cube? and its connection to famous flop Godus – which despite earning hundreds of thousands in Kickstarter money is still in early access, a decade after it was first released.

As a result of that, his subsequent games have been met with considerably less excitement amongst gamers, and yet somehow blockchain game Legacy allegedly managed to make £40 million before it was even properly released.

Now the game, which is described as ‘an extraordinary journey where creativity, strategy, and business innovation meet’, is getting a full release on October 26 for PC and Mac.

The game was conceived several years ago, when there seemed a real danger that NFT nonsense would take over the games industry, but thankfully gamers’ justified contempt for the concept saw major publishers, including Ubisoft, quickly abandoning the idea.

Others, on the outskirts of the industry, haven’t given up though and Legacy will be published by Gala Games, who specialises in Web3 and NFT titles.

The concept of Legacy involves designing and manufacturing your own virtual products to sell and trade with other players, although most of the money seems to be being spent on plots of land.

The in-game equivalent of London went for $900,000 (£740,00) during early access but it remains to be seen if anyone can sell it for anything close to that in today’s market.

Of course, when we say ‘money’ we actually mean cryptocurrency, with the game using one called LegacyCoin.

It all seems like a parody of what you’d imagine Peter Molyneux to do next and yet it’s a real thing that is coming out soon (just six days after Spider-Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, amusingly).

It’s not clear, however, whether this is the same project that Molyneux was hinting about earlier in the year and which he compared to Fable and Dungeon Keeper.

Although there are elements of his older games in Legacy, it’s been in early access for years, so presumably the other game, that he was trying to be secretive about, is something else.