Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton, UK, Peter Molyneux acknowledged that he is not only aware of a need to simplify complex game controls in order to reach a wider audience, but he and the team at Lionhead Studios are hard at work making it a reality for Fable 2. How he is going to go about offering a deep, sophisticated combat model that relies on a single button to accomplish is going to be interesting, to say the least.
Citing his disdain for “button-mashing” games, Molyneax wants gamers to know that they will be rewarded for their desire to master the controls by unlocking greater power-ups and other in-game skills than their counterparts. So what is the reasoning behind his angst?
“I hate that we spend millions of dollars designing our games and only 1 percent of people finish them. If they don’t finish the game, it’s like leaving the movie halfway through, so it’s a rubbish movie to some extent, and that responsibility is on our shoulders. We often make casual gamers feel dumb, stupid and intimidated. We want to make those people feel as good as hardcore gamers.”
Even if you happen to be one of those undesirables that just mash buttons in a futile effort just to get by, all is not lost. Fable 2 is designed to be very forgivable — even to the point of offering reminders to ease you back into gameplay if you happened to set the game down for a few weeks and come back to it. As Peter said, he wants “Granny Mojo” (whoever that is) to be able to pick up and play the game immediately. As for me, I just want it to be a great game that justifies a $60 purchase.
[Via NextGeneration]
