14 DAY TRIAL // Peter Molyneux, who is the current leader of Lionhead Studios, has officially announced that he plans to leave the developer and Microsoft after he completes his current project, called Fable: The Journey, in order to work fulltime for a new company called 22 Cans.
The veteran developer is also currently working as the creative leader at the European Microsoft Studios, which means that he has a say in all the projects that are approved for development inside the company.
Molyneux stated as part of a Twitter message that, “I have left the lovely amazing Microsoft and lionhead. Now for something really amazing, scary and brave a new company called 22 Cans.”
He also added to Kotaku, “It is with mixed emotions that I made the decision to leave Microsoft and Lionhead Studios, the company that I co-founded in 1997, at the conclusion of development of Fable: The Journey.
“I remain extremely passionate and proud of the people, products and experiences that we created, from lack & White to Fable to our pioneering work with Milo and Kate for the Kinect platform. However, I felt the time was right to pursue a new independent venture.”
The first titles that showed his ability as a developer were Dungeon Keeper and Populous, a dungeon management and god game, which were created at Bullfrong.
In 1997 Molyneux left that company to be the co-founder of Lionhead.
His first major title there was Black & White, a game that was hailed as a transformative experience because it sought to create an emotional connection between the player and the creature he was managing and was relying on mouse gestures for much of the input.
In 2006 Lionhead was acquired by Microsoft and Molyneux created the Fable series, using role playing and action elements, designed to show off the best features of the Xbox line of home consoles.
It’s not clear what kind of games Molyneux will be working on at 22 Cans.