Within the historical past of videogames, there are few botches extra notorious than that of Godus. Envisioned as a god sport within the model of Molyneux’s earlier work on the groundbreaking Populous, it was additionally supposed to be the house of the winner of Curiosity, the sport about smashing away items of a dice to achieve the mysterious prize inside—a prize that turned out to be godhood in Godus.
This was the place issues began to go fallacious. Molyneux rapidly started dialing again the size of the promised “life-changing” prize, after which Godus itself turned out to be just about garbola, after which it was all deserted (together with the winner of the Curiosity prize) till 2016, when Molyneux’s 22cans studio resurfaced with Godus Wars, a warfare-focused tackle the thought of the unique. Guess what? Additionally garbola, additionally deserted.
Each video games have lingered on Steam, trapped in a swampy torpor of early entry and long-forgotten detrimental consumer critiques. However now their struggling is sort of over: 22cans has introduced that each video games are being taken down.
“22cans want to share vital information relating to our video games, Godus and Godus Wars,” the studio wrote in a message posted on the Steam retailer pages for each video games. “Regrettably, attributable to an upcoming technical change to Amazon Internet Providers, affecting our capacity to serve essential sport information to new customers, these titles are to be withdrawn from the Steam retailer. Please be assured that present gamers can proceed to take pleasure in these video games with out interruption.
“We sincerely respect the unimaginable help from our gamers over the previous decade and prolong our heartfelt because of you all.”
It is simple to poke enjoyable on the concept of “unimaginable help” from gamers as a result of for probably the most half, Godus and Godus Wars simply pissed folks off and shredded Molyneux’s popularity, which had been well-earned over the earlier 20 years with an enviable run of video games together with Populous, Syndicate, Magic Carpet, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper, Black and White, and Fable. And it isn’t as if there’s any form of group round them: In response to Steam Charts, 9 individuals are at present taking part in Godus (maybe pushed by curiosity following the announcement—that is double the typical concurrent participant rely over the previous 30 days), and there is actually no one taking part in Godus Wars proper now.
Even so, it feels to me like the top of an period. Godus and Godus Wars might have been awful video games however they had been fascinating bits of historical past from a time when Molyneux’s phrases nonetheless carried some weight—it appears so way back now—and I am only a wee little bit bummed out to see them go. Possibly it is partly as a result of it means we’ll by no means once more get to see a headline like this:
However possibly we are going to. Earlier this 12 months, after inflicting a blockchain-based enterprise sim known as Legacy upon the world, Molyneux teased his subsequent challenge, a brand new sport set on the planet of Albion known as MOAT, which he hopes will “counter the entire notion that every little thing I say is a promise that is going to be damaged.” I hope it does.