Molyneux has done it again.

Remember Godus? Of course you don't, nobody remembers Godus. The game's developer, 22cans, barely remembered that game. Anyway, Godus is now dead. Also, Godus Wars is dead. They have both been removed from sale on Steam in a move that 22cans blames on an "upcoming technical change to Amazon Web Services."

Nobody really seems to know just what is meant by that excuse.

Godus was made available through Steam Early Access in 2013. Godus Wars was released into Early Access in 2016. Neither game was ever finished. Neither game received many updates. According to Wikipedia, the last communication from 22cans (prior to this removal announcement) came on May 13, 2016. The last update to Godus was made on April 2, 2015.

Both Godus and Godus Wars earned the prestigious "overwhelmingly negative" user score rank on Steam.

The first Godus originally pulled in over £526,000 through a Kickstarter campaign. The idea that pulled people in was the believe that Godus would be the "reinvention of the god game." Plus, it also had Peter Molyneux's name tied to it thanks to his founding of 22cans. Molyneux was no stranger to the god game genre, having been involved in earlier god games such as Black & White as well as Populous.

That 2013 Early Access release of Godus was bad. It was barebones, included a terrible grind, and looked and played like none of the games that either Bullfrog or Lionhead, Molyneux's former haunts, were known for. There were also countless broken promises involving Godus, including the lack of multiplayer, the lack of a Linux version, and more. Molyneux apparently stated in a December 2021 interview that they were going to release the "first new set of features for Godus in almost two years." He said that update should be out "before Christmas." That update never came. No update ever came.

For some reason, 22cans pushed out Godus Wars in 2016. This game was more focused on combat compared to just Godus. The funniest thing about Godus Wars is that it was supposed to be free to those that bought the original Godus. Except, that just wasn't the case. Only the first land area in Godus Wars was free to Godus owners. After that first land area was finished, there was a fun little pop-up that said players needed to plunk down another £5 to keep playing.

I was about to go into how 22cans' next venture was their NFT and blockchain game, but apparently the studio did release another game after Godus Wars. In August 2017, 22cans released The Trail: Frontier Challenge. This one is actually sitting at a "Mostly Positive" user score on Steam, though it seems as though very few people have actually heard about it, with an all-time player peak of 115.

Going back to that whole NFT thing, Molyneux and 22cans started work on a game called Legacy. This game was to be built entirely on blockchain technologies, NFTs, and "crypto gaming." That game apparently just celebrated its one month birthday on December 1st of this year. Its life beyond that first month remains questionable given 22cans' reputation, the fact that NFTs are deader than dead, and the fact that crypto is hanging on just marginally better than NFTs are.

As for Curiosity and its "winner" Bryan Henderson? Well, Molyneux said in October 2023 that he believes the commitment made towards Henderson was "honoured."