Peter Molyneux says he has "enormous regret" for how he promoted his older work, such as the Fable series, after details he brought up in interviews failed to appear in the games. This includes the infamous claim that the first Fable would let you plant an acorn and see it grow into a tree as the game progressed.

These comments were made during a rare interview on the My Perfect Console podcast (as spotted by Eurogamer), where Molyneux addresses his past controversies. While defending his comments, arguing that he never intentionally deceived anyone, he admits that he "feels remorse" for his behaviour, and has changed how he approaches game development as a result.

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"What I should have said in every interview was 'Look, everything I say, take it with a pinch of salt'," says Molyneux. "It was atrocious and I have an enormous amount of regret for it."

He particularly feels bad for his team, who would hear of game features in the press before Molyneux had officially mentioned them in the studio. In some cases, he says he even got inspiration from the questions journalists would ask him. When they asked him if a feature was in the game, he would say it would be if he liked the idea. "I was thinking that I was designing the game as I was talking to the press," he says. "In today's world, that's total insanity."

However, Molyneux still defends the content of what he said, even if he regrets how he went about it all.

"As any unfinished project goes, quite often things change in that development process and I think people mistook that as being promises of features in the game," says Molyneux. "Really, the ability to talk openly and honestly about the design process just wasn't what it was."

He says this is why he has "retreated" from the media, and doesn't make high-profile appearances to discuss his games as he used to, something he misses.

"I miss that fantastic feeling of going into a room of tired journalists at shows like E3, and exciting them about a game which is not yet finished," Molyneux adds. "But it's given me a hell of a lot more time to work on my existing projects."

Much of what Molyneux touches on is similar to what he said to TheGamer when we took a deep dive into Fable's development. Both on the podcast and in our chat, he pinned the controversial nature of his media appearances on changing attitudes in the gaming industry. He argues that earlier in his career, there was more of a fascination with the "process" of making games. Molyneux says this shifted over time, meaning everything he said to the media was "interpreted as a promise."

In any case, Molyneux has another game on the way. Learning from previous incidents, he says we won't hear about it for some time, so we'll have to wait and see what his current studio, 22cans, is cooking.

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