In June, on the eve of the release Beyond Good & Evil – 20th Anniversary Editionpublisher Ubisoft made a surprising announcement: The sequel to this game, Beyond Good and Evil 2, was still in development, the company said. This was the first official update for the sequel, which has been in the works for a whopping 17 years, starting in 2021.
To show that it was serious about the final delivery Beyond Good and Evil 2 at some point Ubisoft even gave a new teaser for the sequel to their remaster of the original Beyond Good & Evil. A new treasure hunt in the anniversary edition “reveals more about the story link Beyond Good and Evil 2which shows Ubisoft’s continued commitment to the franchise,” the company said.
This narrative reference was quickly discovered by players. It shows a holographic message for the protagonist Jade from Dakini, Jade’s mother and the captain of the space pirate ship Gada. In addition to the heartfelt recording, Dakini Jade is gifting a number of artifacts associated with the characters that will appear in the Beyond Good and Evil 2 — a prequel to the original game.
Collectables include Dakini’s Compass, Chimpanzee Pirate Knox’s Knife, Gad Engineer Callum’s Chess Piece, Pilot Yaashan’s Glasses, and Chief Medical Officer Uma’s Dream Catcher. These characters – all of whom were seen Beyond Good and Evil 22018 Movie Trailers – Comes with additional color in a series of multimedia discs that Jade can collect in the 20th anniversary edition.
This new content seems to confirm that Ubisoft plans to stick with the previously revealed cast and setting Beyond Good and Evil 2, which has seen a number of ups and downs during its absurdly long development timeline. Whether version Beyond Good and Evil 2 what will eventually come out will be the huge open world, single player shared universe, and co-op shared universe that was previously promised – or something more modest – remains to be seen.
But to remind you how we got here and what Ubisoft said Beyond Good and Evil 2 read a brief history of the game’s development over the past decade and a half.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 was first teased back in 2007, when then-game director Michel Ancel teased a sequel on Nintendo Power. “I’m currently working on a game that means a lot to me,” said Ancel, “where the basis is immersion and the feeling of an incredible journey.”
A year later, Ancel himself later announced the project directly, telling the French publication JeuxVideo: “I have been working on Beyond Good & Evil 2. We’ve been in pre-production for a year now. […] But for now it’s in the design stage. Ubisoft has not yet given its approval.”
Ubisoft has released the first official look Beyond Good and Evil 2 at its Ubidays ’08 event, teasing the return of characters Jade and Pey’j, but not directly naming the game as a sequel Beyond Good & Evil. The trailer was described by Ubisoft as representative of the graphical fidelity of the then current generation consoles: PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
A year after the official reveal of the sequel, a supposedly leaked gameplay trailer was released online by various media outlets. Ubisoft denied it had deliberately leaked the footage, which showed the character – ostensibly Jade – running through city streets and escaping her pursuers by hijacking a helicopter. Ancel confirmed the authenticity of the leaked game in an interview with Geoff Keighley, where there seemed to be a constant exchange of information between the game’s director and its publisher about how to promote it. Beyond Good and Evil 2.
For the next decade, destiny Beyond Good and Evil 2 was unclear. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and Ancel have stated in several interviews that the game is still in development, but that other projects (Rayman Legends, Fierce) slowed or interrupted its progress. Ubisoft president Laurent Detoc seemed more skeptical BG&E 2The fate of Industry Gamers said in 2009, “Whether or not it works remains to be seen.”
Beyond Good and Evil 2 resurfaced in 2016, when Ancel posted concept art for the game on Instagram, hinting at a prequel and saying the game was still in “pre-production”. Ubisoft later said in a Facebook post that BG&E 2 was “under development”.
At E3 2017, Ubisoft revealed again Beyond Good and Evil 2 with a new cinematic trailer that introduced much of the game’s space pirate cast. Ancel and Ubisoft have confirmed that the game is a prequel and that players will take on the role of a character of their own creation. They would no longer play as Jade. Ancel also confirmed that previous iterations of the game shown nearly a decade ago were from narrative continuation and that the game has changed substantially over the past decade.
Ancel also showed a 14-minute demo of the game BG&E 2 that year, which he described as “a mix between a tech demo of the engine we call Voyager and an actual game with some gameplay elements”.
The game’s 2017 launch also introduced Ubisoft’s Space Monkey Program, an initiative that was designed as a way for Beyond Good & Evil fans to “create art and music that will be integrated directly into the game”.
“The BGE community has already produced incredible fan art, fan fiction, cosplay, music, [and] videos over the years, so we started thinking about ways to be more inclusive for all members of the community,” reads Ubisoft’s description of the program. “Through our partnership with HitRecord, the community can participate even more directly in the creation of our game.”
HitRecord is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s company and website, which Gordon-Levitt says serves as a “collaboration hub for a community full of people who love to create all kinds of art together.” The Space Monkey program and HitRecord’s involvement immediately sparked backlash, as Ubisoft appeared to be asking its fans to contribute unpaid labor and custom work to create Beyond Good and Evil 2with the only return being the promise of “special events and demos and [to] be among the first to play the game.”
In 2018, Ubisoft released a second cinematic trailer that explored the Gad space pirate crew and teased the return of a younger Jade.
After that, Ubisoft and Ancel once again took a break from the game’s development. In September 2020, Ancel announced on Instagram that he had left Ubisoft entirely, but that “[for] for many months now [Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Wild] the teams are autonomous and the projects are going great.” The following month, Ancel said that he had not worked directly with the Ubisoft Montpellier team for nearly two years, saying that he had only worked on the game in an advisory role. This update was in response to a report in French newspaper Libération that cited harsh working conditions in the game and chaotic leadership from Ancel.
In 2021, Ubisoft offered a cursory update on the sequel, stating in a financial statement that Beyond Good and Evil 2 development was “progressing well”. But in 2023, the game suffered a terrible blow; its creative director Emile Morel died suddenly at the age of 40. Beyond Good & Evil – 20th Anniversary Edition includes a small tribute to Morel: a bouquet of flowers and a postcard to the veteran game designer.
Edition Beyond Good & Evil – 20th Anniversary Edition and its fresh narrative tie to the (now) prequel is the strongest commitment we’ve seen from Ubisoft in years that fans will eventually get a new game in the franchise. Outside of Jade’s and Pey’j’s cameo appearances in the animated series Captain Laserhawkit’s the only sign of life from Ubisoft with regards to getting it BG&E 2 across the finish line. But given the devoted dedication of the publisher, I play as For honor, Rainbow Six Siegeand wasting away Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, there is reason to believe so Beyond Good and Evil 2 will finally get here. Sometimes.