Michel Ancel, the renowned creator of Rayman, recalled that those responsible for Beyond Good & Evil 2 could not agree on the characteristics of the project…
In 2008, Ubisoft excited thousands of gamers around the world by confirming the development of Beyond Good & Evil 2. Since then, this sci-fi adventure has experienced a thousand failures and has earned the dubious honour of being the longest-running game in history. Now, one of the former heads of the project, Michel Ancel, has revealed that the adventure’s biggest problem was the constant bickering between the bosses.
Ancel, the creator of Rayman, was an important developer on Beyond Good & Evil 2 until his departure from Ubisoft in 2020, which coincided with an article published in the newspaper Libération in which, after a conversation with Ubisoft developers, he was attacked for the disorganized and even abusive aspects of the project’s management. Now, the expert has given an interview to Superpouvoir (via Insider Gaming) to point out the issues surrounding the sci-fi game’s development.
“In Beyond Good & Evil 2, for example, there were too many problems between managers”.
“The artistic director wanted to redo everything constantly, and the game director wanted to make a game of generated dungeons. I dreamed of a space adventure. We could not agree and the game director took the project in other directions,” he explains in the conversation. “In this type of situation, teams find themselves tossed around and don’t even know who’s in charge and making decisions. The producer is supposed to sort things out, but that didn’t happen.”
“Yves Guillemot even had to go down to Montpellier to get things back on track, but that wasn’t enough and the game director continued in his stubbornness,” Ancel continues. “When I read in Libé that I was the one directing the game and asking for changes, I thought I was going to choke. BGE2 is the game on which I don’t think I’ve ever questioned a decision.” The latest we know about Beyond Good & Evil 2 is that it hasn’t been cancelled. In fact, the last major update on the project dates back to last October, when the staff was refreshed with the departure of producer Guillaume Brunier and the arrival of Francis Coldeboeuf. Over time, we will presumably get more information about the development status. (Unless this is also cancelled under the bush, see below…)
Michel Ancel says WiLD was cancelled due to Ubisoft’s poor management
In the same interview, Ancel also gave a behind-the-scenes look at WiLD, the Neolithic survival open-world title developed by Ubisoft subsidiary Wild Sheep, which was cancelled in 2024. According to him, the game was “crushed by arbitrary decisions and changes demanded by people who didn’t even play it.” So to this day, it’s a shame that this development never saw the light of day.
Source: Superpouvoir, Insider Gaming
