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Masters of Albion's 'New Beginnings' update launches today, and it overhauls and upgrades many of the original early access release's systems. The above video gives an overview of what's new.
I bought Masters of Albion when it launched in April. But after scoping out what's new in this update, I feel the moment that I and, no doubt, many other PC gamers have been waiting for has arrived: it's the moment when Peter Molyneux's final title has properly started to take form and genuinely recapture the god game magic of old.
Here is what's new in Masters of Albion, with commentary from Peter Molyneux on each new feature. This is followed by my personal take on the New Beginnings update.
Engine performance just doubled
Nighttime gameplay is overhauled
There's a brand new, card-based Arcadium
Product orders now are narrative lead
The design table has been reworked
The Orkenstone now warps the landscape
The god hand has been upgraded
Masters of Albion's start has been enhanced
Mysterious new colossal structures now exist
My take on New Beginnings
Speaking candidly, before the New Beginnings update I struggled to recommend Masters of Albion to most PC gamers. And this was because, at launch, I felt the game was lightweight, even for an early access game. It had plenty of god game systems, sure, such as building and settlement construction, product manufacturing, and combat (strategic and action), and yes, there was the famous god hand of old to wield, but much like the game's rudimentary opening, the well of what you could actually do with those systems soon ran dry.
Be that the repetitive nature of product manufacturing, the eventual grind of nighttime, or the limited way in which you could impact the world with your god hand, what you could do made you recall Molyneux's great games of old, such as Dungeon Keeper, Black & White, and Fable, but you were left wanting more, as the systems were not as complex, fleshed out, or varied.
Molyneux has since described the original release of Masters of Albion as an 'initial sketch' of a game, and in many respects that is to be expected from the very first version of an early access game, but when you're trying to combine multiple parts of other genres together for your game, individual genres that in single-genre releases tend to flesh out their core loop at the earliest moment as it is all they deliver, rather than just a facet of what they deliver, it feels a harder sell to convince gamers to get invested when your game's systems start off in a more unfinished state.
To me, this ability to combine multiple genres together has always been where Molyneux has been at his creative, magical best, delivering unique experiences not offered elsewhere. But combining genres also poses its own problems, with the two most pressing being the depth of the systems and how they interact. You need the systems, such as city building and RTS combat, to be good enough to stand on their own and combine into something new, as otherwise the draw for gamers to just go play the single-genre game that does, say, RTS combat better will be too strong. Molyneux hit this problem in Black & White 2.
The good news is that the updates that New Beginnings bring all seem to directly address these two fundamental aspects in both fleshing out the bare-bones original early access release, or overhauling its core systems for the better, while adding extra interactivity and strategic weight. And I genuinely think those changes shift the game up to a whole new level. Suddenly Masters of Albion feels like a proper PC release and, while far from finished, is now in an early access state where I feel I can recommend it to god game fans, as well as PC gamers interested in getting a taste of this old-school PC gaming genre.
The game's engine optimisation is also a huge deal. This was my number one criticism from playing the game at launch. Despite having a powerful gaming PC, I struggled to hit 30 fps at times, despite the game not being a AAA graphical powerhouse. A much higher fps is going to make a big difference.
Finally, what I consider to be the really tantalising addition in this update, though, is the appearance of these mysterious colossal structures that dominate the skyline—especially because they are called out in the New Beginnings press release, which asks if they are "a link to the past or a foreshadowing of the future?" This, along with Molyneux's cryptic commentary above, indicates that Masters of Albion could very well be heading towards introducing Black & White-style giant avatars in a future update. If these are added, and we continue to see this level of acting on community feedback to refine and upgrade in-game systems, maybe Masters of Albion really will evolve into the ultimate god game. And that would be a fitting swansong for the man who created the genre.
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