The king of big promises is employing an entirely new pre-release marketing strategy this time.

Masters of Albion is Peter Molyneux’s last game, at least according to him, and a reunion with his early Lionhead colleagues. This is all quite nerve-wracking. In an interview with The Game Business, Molyneux describes the team as inexperienced and warns that they will likely encounter major obstacles in a world they don’t fully understand.

The four colleagues featured in the interview (Mark Healey, Russell Shaw, Iain Wright, and Kareem Ettouney) are very familiar with the process of making games, having worked with Molyneux on games such as Magic Carpet, Syndicate, Black & White, and Fable. The business side, however, is another matter. 22Cans is publishing Masters of Albion itself, so tasks usually handled by a publisher, such as PR and marketing, fall to Molyneux and his colleagues.

“We are incredibly inexperienced. I am petrified because we are entering a world we don’t fully understand. We’ve been lucky that lots of outside people are coming in and helping us, but I’m sure we’re going to make some horrendous mistakes. But if this is going to be our last game, why not give it a try? We’re going to make some horrendous mistakes. Horrendous mistakes. We have hired almost everybody here for their passion, including the community team. They don’t have any experience, but for me, passion trumps experience every time. They truly care. We’re setting up a Discord server now. How does that work? I don’t really understand it. Making mistakes and correcting them quickly is the important part,” Molyneux said.

Masters of Albion will be an early access game. There are many systems that need to be refined, balanced, and modified, which depends largely on how players interact with the game. However, this creates the potential for unmet expectations and unacceptable decisions, which can lead to headaches. Experienced and effective community management and audience relations can really make a difference here. However, the absence of these can also be interesting.

“Causing confusion” is an interesting approach to pre-release PR. However, managing expectations is a new tactic for Molyneux. Referencing classics such as Dungeon Keeper, Black & White, and Fable, he said he truly feels the magic has returned. He described the game in January as the culmination of his life’s work. While it may not reach the worst exaggerations of Curiosity, it certainly sets the bar high.

Whether it will reach that bar is the big question. Masters of Albion will be released on Steam Early Access on April 22.

Source: PCGamer, The Game Business