Fable 3 is a "trainwreck", games "always flawed in some way", says Molyneux

Fable creator Peter Molyneux has said that he'll probably never make a perfect game, but at least one of his past efforts is particularly far from ideal.

Speaking with Develop, Molyneux said that when he designs a game he always has "this perfect jewel in mind".

"Fable for me was this beautiful, incredible, amusing, funny, artistic, wonderful gem of a game that anyone could play, that tugged on the heartstrings and that was instantly engaging. The gem that was in my mind has never come to be, it’s always flawed in some way," he said.

"I thought Fable 1 – when you consider that it was the first game I ever did of that type – wasn’t bad. It was hugely flawed in some senses, and there were technical issues like the animation didn’t work but it wasn’t bad.

"I think Fable 2 was a step in the right direction. I think Fable 3 was a trainwreck."

Molyneux said Fable 3 was built to be "much bigger" than how it turned out and was constrained in various ways.

"If I had my time again, I’d take the advances we made from Fable 1 to Fable 2, I’d make the same advances from Fable 2 to Fable 3 and spend another entire year working on Fable 3. But would it be that perfect gem that’s in my mind? No," he said.

While Molyneux has never been able to meet his own expectations, he's also acquired a reputation for raising fan expectations and dashing those, too.

“I just shouldn’t get so excited in front of the press," he mourned. "There’s an empirical decay between what the idea is in your mind and what you end up with, no matter what creative field you’re working in. I talk to a lot of creative people and they’re often disappointed in their own work.

"Saying that, of course, Godus exceeds that gem," he added, probably jokingly.

There's no denying Fable 3 has its problems, although I think that makes it one of the most interesting games of the last generation - because it's likely the last great big broken game we'll ever see.