Shenmue III? Check. Final Fantasy VII remake? Check. The Last Guardian? Check. Beyond Good & Evil 2? Well, it’s complicated, but it’s not sounding good.
The last official footage released from Beyond Good & Evil 2 was a teaser trailer at E3 2009:
A few years later, leaked footage from the game seemed to surface.
As of E3 2014, Ubisoft said the game was still coming, even though we hadn’t seen it in years:
“In many ways, BG&E is an inimitable game – it appeals to all generations of gamers and is an inspiration behind many of Ubisoft Montpellier’s past and future games. It’s still far too early to give many details about this new title, but what we can say is that while Michel and the team at Ubisoft Montpellier are working with the core tenets of BG&E, they’re developing something that aspires to push past the boundaries of a proverbial sequel and leverages next-gen technologies to deliver a truly surprising, innovative and exceptional game. The entire team is excited about the direction this extremely ambitious project is taking, and we’ll have more to share later, as it progresses.”
Creator Michel Ancel started his own studio in 2014, but was apparently still tied to Ubisoft in some ways. This left some hope he was creating his new game, Wild, and Beyond Good & Evil 2.
Since Beyond Good & Evil 2 didn’t show up at anyone’s press conference, the wait began for someone in the press to ask Ubisoft about the game’s status. It’s an annual, depressing ritual.
The latest news came from GameSpot news editor Tamoor Hussain, who briefly talked about the project during a video about the then-upcoming Ubisoft press conference.
“I did some investigating on this,” said Hussain. “I wasn’t able to confirm this [for a news story]. I’ve never talked about this before. The problem I had was [that] it didn’t become a news story because I didn’t corroborate it enough to get it out there. But I’ve been told it’s been abandoned — in a big way. The studio has moved on. The key people from that studio that were making it moved onto other projects outside of Ubisoft. Like I said, I might be wrong on that, but I had enough of it to chase that small lead.”
Soon after, IGN reportedly spoke with Ubisoft senior VP of sales and marketing Tony Key, who said the company would “love to do another one.”
I say “reportedly” because IGN soon took the article down for reasons unknown. The cached version is still up. The article’s author, Mitch Dyer, hasn’t commented on the article’s disappearance, nor has IGN.
Ubisoft did not respond to my request for comment.
When asked about Ancel, Key seemed to confirm suspicions the developer wasn’t working on it.
“So he’s [Ancel] a busy guy right now,” said Key. “But no… He’s got things going on and I can’t really comment on his bandwidth. I know he’s very busy. We still work with him on things.”
It may be time to move on, Beyond Good & Evil fans.
Comments
18 responses to “Things Are Looking Grim For Beyond Good & Evil 2”
WORST E3 EVA!!!!!!!!!!!!
I enjoyed the first 1 quite a bit on the GameCube but it never struck me as this super amazing game that had to have a sequel.
I have never understood why this game had so much hype and is considered the “right” way to represent a female protagonist.
Because Jade is a strong, well developed character that, at the time, was almost alone in being able to be the focus of a game without needing to wear skimpy clothes or get her tits out.
Well… I didn’t want it anyway.
*runs off crying*
This article kinda really just left it at the place where we were last year, no?
They might as well have just republished last years. Or republish this one as a prediction for next year…
“We’re still making random guesses based on corporate double speak”
said it before,
will say it again;
would be great if guys like Michel Ancel and Eric Chahi cut ties with Ubi and could turn to options like Kickstarter (or collaboration with someone like Fred Raynal) since Ubi seem to keep pooping on or pulling the rug out from under the sort of projects from which they make such a name for themselves
Considering that sony are co-funding the development of that new Shenmue thing, it’d be nice if there was an option to do something like that with BG&E2
I see this announced for kickstarter after they see what happened to Shenmue.
I’d give them bare minimum for a copy
BGE2’s soul was sapped to fuel FFVII and Shenmue III. They’re vampires.
Last time I saw BGE2 it was hanging out with Half Life 3.
Kotaku, your journalism has become half assed recently. Sounds like your indicating that BG&E 2 could quietly be in Development hell and we might never see the game. But Ubisoft and the Developers have another opinion.
From Ubisofts comments in the past 4 years serms to indicate the game is not cancelled.
In May 2014, Ubisoft announced the game was in an “Active Development Stage”, with indications the Game Engine was nearly complete.
On July 31st, Ubisoft were still heavy into Development and VERY HAPPY with where the game was going, they had this to say:
“In many ways, BG&E is an inimitable game – it appeals to all generations of gamers and is an inspiration behind many of Ubisoft Montpellier’s past and future games. It’s still far too early to give many details about this new title, but what we can say is that while Michel and the team at Ubisoft Montpellier are working with the core tenets of BG&E, they’re developing something that aspires to push past the boundaries of a proverbial sequel and leverages next-gen technologies to deliver a truly surprising, innovative and exceptional game. The entire team is excited about the direction this extremely ambitious project is taking, and we’ll have more to share later, as it progresses”.
Not long before this, Michel Ancel had announced he had set up a New Studio and started work on a new game, while still heavily working on BG&E2.
Then on July 16th like stated by Kotaku, it was announced Michel Ancel moved onto working with his own Game Studio.
But Ubisoft still said, “I know he’s very busy. We still work with him on things”, which indicates Ancel still has some sort of active roll in the Development of BG&E2, which makes sense cause the game is his baby.
Why would BG&E2 be in such a grim state when Ubisoft have mentioned a few times up untill mid-late 2014 that they were very happy with where the game is and the direction it is taking, even showing off extremely impressive gameplay footage.
Ubisoft don’t have a history of letting games get this far into development, only to cancel. If it was in Development in 2012, and still in development by the end of 2014, then my bets are the game is on track.
Also with it supposedly being a very ambitous game, could still be a a couple of years away before anything is shown off.
Personally, I heavily Suspect Michel Ancel became very happy with the stage BG&E2 was at, decided the game was at a point that he Trust and is happy to leave the game in the hands of the Ubisoft Developers, so moved onto working full time on his Own game, but still contributing to BG&E2’s development on ocassions.
Personally I think Ubisoft is just content to run drive their biggest IP into the ground. If they could push out Assasins Creeds any faster they would (just look at how unpolished Unity was)
They don’t care about anything that’s not Assasins Creed. They should just rename themselves to Abstergo Entertainment already -.-
Once A.C. starts (eventually) selling poorly I bet they’ll probably try reboot Prince of Persia again.
Man, this is so much babbling buzzword, deflecting and avoidance of a clear “yes” that it read as a definitive “no” even back then.
It breaks my heart :'[
It would just be the best if BG&E2 happened. The best. So depressing..