Peter Molyneux’s long trail back to PC games

Peter Molyneux is a legendary game designer, creator of the first “god game” and maker of hits such as Populous, Black & White, and Fable. He took a lot criticism from Internet haters a few years ago for over-hyping games that hadn’t shipped yet. So he dropped out of sight.

But he didn’t stop making games. Now his 22cans studio in the United Kingdom is about to ship The Trail: Frontier Challenge for the PC. Kongregate will publish it August 16 on Steam for $15. It’s a beefed-up version of The Trail, a mobile game that 22cans released last fall. And Molyneux is back to talking with press because he said his former pledge to stop doing interviews was “childish.”

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.