Molyneux: "The worst thing I've ever said"

Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has revealed what he considers to be the greatest of his infamous overstatements.

Speaking to a packed audience at the Eurogamer Expo today, Molyneux ran through a retrospective of the Fable series to date.

Molyneux claimed that the first game was originally discussed when at Bullfrog back in 1996, born of a desire to create a non-statistical roleplaying game.

Following his departure from Bullfrog, "We went away worked hard at building a team, Big Blue Box. We were lucky enough to get a contract with Microsoft," he said, "and then I went out to the press and I said something terrible.

"Probably the worst thing I've ever said in my life. I said Fable is going to be the greatest roleplaying game of all time.

"That was the first time I really realised that you can make huge mistakes in the press - you can't just stand up and get all enthusiastic like I do with developers."

However, he was adamant that the same intention remained, despite fans' angry response to the statement. "We're still trying to make the greatest roleplaying game of all time."

He also revealed that Microsoft at one point had low expectations for the Xbox game. "Your publisher always tends to fill you with doom and gloom, you had something called a forecast which said it could possibly sell this much and you think 'oh God, I don't make a game that sells 100 units, it should be million units.'

"And Fable came out it was just hugely successful. That conversation in 1996 led to the start of something we loved so much."

Molyneux went on to joke that, despite the improvements to the series over the time, and the addition of a female playable character to the upcoming third game, "I still can't persuade my wife to like Fable."

He also hailed PlayStation 2 cult hit Ico as "probably the greatest game design of all time."