there are also basic plans to extend the Black & White series through five full games. For the third game and beyond, there are one or two page design docs, and they’re naturally pretty vague at this stage. But there are some more specific plans for Black & White 3, which should be particularly spectacular visually and will use a completely new engine.

The idea behind the sequel is that the world has moved on. The villagers have a little bit more technology now, and they’re more warlike. Fighting has broken out between the tribes. As a god, you’re stuck in the middle of the ensuing war, and you have to choose which side you want to support. “I really like the idea of these huge, quite vicious wars going on, and you as a god returning to this land that you left in peace at the end of Black & White having to choose a side,” explains Peter.

Intrepid, a sub-division of Lionhead Studios, is handling the console version of Black & White: Next Generation which, instead of offering players a gods-eye view of your chosen creature, offers a choice of a first or third person perspective, with the idea that you are, and play as, the creature.

Black & White Next-Generation is in development for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. While Molyneux said he likes the GameCube hardware – especially the controller – he said it’s unlikely the game will appear on that console because the Nintendo licensing structure makes it difficult to find a publisher for GameCube games.

When you’ve completed Creature Isles’ single-player game, you’ll have not one but three creatures to help you, as both Tyke and your creature’s child will be persistent throughout Black & White – even in the first game’s single-player campaign, if Lionhead’s planned patch for the game works out. Given that the stakes involved in losing your saved creature data are going up considerably with the expansion, Lionhead is thinking of making it possible to save your creatures on a central server.

Peter started with an apology to all the Black & White players for the buggy state of the game at release and said that Creature Isles would come with an added stability patch.

Peter nonchalantly opened up the demonstration with the blunt statement, “Overwhelmingly what the fans said is they’d like to see their creature have sex with another creature.” With that said, Peter explained that the ultimate objective of Creature Isle is to breed with a female creature.