The announcement ofBeyond Good and Evil 2during E3 2016 was a welcome surprise for many, as fans of the original game hoped but didn’t trust a sequel would ever be made. Even then, skepticism was rife, as the gameplay fromBeyond Good and Evil 2looked prototypical. The years since have not done much to counter that skepticism, withBeyond Good and Evilcreator Michel Ancel departing the project and Ubisoft entirely. Yet, despite all implications otherwise, reports claim thatBeyond Good and Evil 2remains in development.
The report comes from Bloomberg, though the information is only tangentially mentioned in relation to another Ubisoft project – astandaloneAssassin’s Creedgame that used to be an expansion forAssassin’s Creed Valhalla. According to Bloomberg,Beyond Good and Evil 2remains in development at Ubisoft. However, there’s no further information to share regarding Ubisoft’s future plans for the sequel.
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All that Bloomberg is willing to add on the subject is thatBeyond Good and Evil 2has yet to move into full production. Despite over five years passing sinceBeyond Good and Evil 2’s announcement, the sequel remains in pre-production. That means that it remains in a state of planning that can involve basic ideas like deciding what the actual game will be and whether there’s a market for it. Suffice to say, it’s not an encouraging place for a game to be in after so much time.
While it’s impossible to predict exactly what’s going on behind the scenes at Ubisoft, there are several possible reasonable explanations forBeyond Good and Evil 2’s development woes. To start, its announcement came before an actual game had been figured out. Since then, the project may have been rebooted one or several times. It’s also possible, if not likely, that development resources for the project have been taken for other priorities likeFar CryandAssassin’s Creed.
There are also the very real and unignorable controversies that have waylaid Ubisoft for some time now. Accusations of discrimination andsexual harassment within Ubisofthave led to a lot of shifting around, as well as low morale. That alone may have crippled the development ofBeyond Good and Evil 2.
All that fans ofBeyond Good and Evilcan do now is wait and hope that Ubisoft will soon redirect the resources necessary for the sequel to move forward in development. As of right now, however, that doesn’t seem like something to happen soon. It likely won’t be for years yet before thefate ofBeyond Good and Evil 2is made known.
Beyond Good and Evil 2is in development.
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