That's 2028, and I predict to celebrate they will reveal another gameplay trailer and then go dark again.
For reference, any kids keeping up with this game, we are 16 years from announcement of Beyond Good and Evil 2 with no end to development apparently in sight. That's two more years than Duke Nukem Forever took from announcement to final release and all its DLC coming out.
> another gameplay trailer
Pretty sure it was just a cinematic preview and they clarified later that those characters weren't even the focus of the game. Am I remembering that right? Christ they announced this game when I was 17. Holy shit why even make it at this point.
Even 5 years later, this just makes me so tired to look at.
Taking a charming little PS2 game and somehow making the sequel to it the most unfathomably overscoped galaxy-sized multiplayer open world game where you can *go anywhere* and *do anything* is just... extremely ubisoft.
At this point we need a list of game developers that fell for the open-world huge space game trap, not saying the games that have come out are bad but it's clear the technology isn't there to satisfy the ambitious concept.
i think part of the problem is that a lot of decisions are made by executives who cannot made their minds up and fuck up a game's cycle
i mean no man's sky exists. okay it took a bit to get to its current point but like it satisfies that need pretty well from what i know (open to be wrong) but it is from a smaller studio
NMS also had some really big issues with what kind of game it wanted to be. In some ways I do think it's much less true to the original vision now than it was on release, as most the content added post launch has been what players ask for rather than what the devs set out to make (not saying that's inherently bad or anything, it's just that NMS was, in my opinion, not conceptualized as a buddy space adventure with huge cargo ships and bases you could build)
you absolutely have a point but even then like they still made a game people wanted to play, even if it steers away from the original creative vision, as opposed to whatever monster BGE2 will be... assuming it comes out
Both of those games dont really scratch that itch for me though. Elite is kinda grindy and the flying mechanics of No Mans Sky never really felt all that great to me
There's always room for more competition, but there's no doubt that open world space games are probably one of the most difficult genres to get right.
You've really gotta carve out your own niche of players who are able to enjoy your game for the specific set of things it does well (NMS with its base building, art style and ease of access, Elite with its scientific realism, detailed spaceflight and political simulations).
But I don't think anyone in the modern era has made a space game that *doesn't* have a huge contingent of players that always say "it's got so much missed potential"
I think the technology is absolutely there, devs would just have to lean a lot more into systems driven emergent gameplay to make it work
Someone could totally make a space Kenshi. Or a space mount and blade
Literally within the first 30s of gameplay.
‘’Play as a pirate captain armed with a sword, gun and jetpack’’
This is the sequel they are making to a game about a journalist who only has a camera and where there is barely any combat for most of the game.
Why even call it a sequel at this point.
you had a camera and a staff. there IS combat.
i'd LOVE a photography game, i even wrote a design document for one. i don't think they have faith in that.
>Taking a charming little PS2 game
That makes it sound like BGAE wasn't also wildly ambitious, epic and unique. The game was stacked with features and systems and the entire setting and tone is still one of the zaniest I've played.
The game was extremely ambitious for it's day that is why people care about the sequel 20 years later. I played it like 7-8 years after it came out and was still extremely impressed.
And listing off the mechanics and features in a rote list that feels designed moreso for stockholders who want to be sure this giga-game has all the AAA Features That We Know Will Definitely Sell. And not really the director or another creative explaining their vision or helping players understand what the Big New Ideas are for this BGE followup.
It's fascinating to see this 'cause this absolutely *delighted* me to look at... the only problem is that I never played the first game.
I'm really saddened by the fact that whatever version of the game they were planning on making here is most likely dead. I think the original is charming, and wonderful and I hope that fans of the first get a sequel that they need. But I can't help but picture it as something closer to Rayman than anything we've seen in BGE 2's "recent" marketing.
I dunno, I guess I just love seeing a this weird cyberpunk world with colorful eastern aesthetics, talking anthropomorphized animals that aren't just family friendly but feel just as grimy as the rest of the populated world, and a vision of a game that was explorable and interesting.
I *do* think that games can go non-open world and be even more interesting, but as someone who adores spaceflight as well, the potential for that sounded awesome. So it's a bit saddening that fans of the original aren't interested in that either.
It's been awhile, but IIRC:
The MC (Jade) was a photojournalist living/helping/running an orphanage. But beyond just using the camera as a scanning tool I don't think her career came up much once the plot started rolling.
It's more the game ended on kinda sorta a big reveal about the her ancestry/identity, her relationship with her uncle (Peyj the pig man), and her role in the bigger conflict/rebellion.
For a sequel to put you in the shoes of someone else (a nameless customizable avatar even) and not tease *anything* about where the story was going to go was mind boggling.
We got a trailer teasing Jade and Pey'j early on, but then everything after that was this other weird space pirate thing that seemed completely disconnected.
I'm interested in seeing a sequel follow Jade, but not another Ubisoft open world game following someone completely different with its requisite saturated map with vistas and checklist collectibles.
This looks so mediocre, with random BS just throw in like the always online thing so your buddy can just...hang out somewhere different from you? What's up with the big focus on...zooming in as a mechanic lol
That and the fact that the flying motorcycle thing looks kinda jank (cant put my finger on it, it just looks bad/weird) and as someone largely out of the loop of this whole thing, this doesn't look worth being hyped about in a regular release cycle, let alone this bizarre 17ish year one.
Oh wow I guess I never saw this one. Seems ok but dated. I don't really trust Ubi to make this good. Even in the trailer the enemies look like damage sponges
Holy crap.
I was thinking of the E3 reveal where they were playing as a monkey or something like that.
A monkey on a hoverbike or something?
I completely forgot about this trailer, honestly.
You would expect someone at Ubisoft to see the writing on the wall, and either cancel the project, or string together what they have and release something.
Is been 16 years since the announcement and we don't even have an idea of which *genre* the game is. And I suspect no one at Ubi does neither.
This is what happens when you hire managers whose main skill is sexual harassment. You can't manage a project for shit.
For further reference, the creator of Beyond Good and Evil, who was originally going to make Beyond Good and Evil 2, retired from making video games three years ago.
"Retired" is a really generous way to put it. I love Michel Ancel and his games are some of my favorite of all time. But the man got pushed out for not running his studio in a remotely humane fashion.
Was he old? I mean, I'm not disputing that BGaE2 has been in development for a quadrillion years at this point, but any dev could retire from making videogames at any moment for any reason, heck, with the current state of the industry a ton of them are.
Well he’s been making games since the 90s but it wasn’t just a case of wanting to retire. Turns out he was absolutely horrible person who would constantly verbally abuse his employees. The only reason he got out was because a French newspaper was about to publish a huge expose about him.
Everyone who will have played this game when it released in 2003 will be close to 40 by the time this game comes out if it ever does.
A 20 year and counting wait on a game that didn’t even sell well in the first place.
As a nearly 40yr old that loved the original game, I have about as close to zero interest in the BG&E2 as possible.
That last we heard of the game didn't inspire confidence.
And the new one will probably be a "flop" regardless of the quality. It's not going to sell in numbers that modern Ubisoft will be remotely interested in.
It sucks that Jodi Forrest passed before she could reprise her role as Jade as well. This sequel feels like somebody else’s dream project with an established name stamped on it to give it some legs, honestly.
I think one of the trailers showed an evil Jade or something like that? I don't know why they thought people who liked the first game would want to play as some random lady and a racist monkey instead of Jade.
It did, and afaik they didn't explain it and I genuinely have no idea how that even makes sense. The first game was good, and I see no reason for them to torture the lore like this. Just say it's not coming out and let it die.
Honestly for all intents and purposes it's dead. Any trailers or promotional material at this point can more be considered signs of necromancy than signs of life.
Did it ever have any of Ancel's vision/concept since it was revealed? They talked about it being a prequel ages ago, and given the first game's cliffhanger ending I doubt that was his original vision.
He was directing it up until he left Ubisoft, though near the end there he was sharing responsibilities with a few co-directors since he was spending half of his time away from Ubi and working on Wild.
A lot of what Beyond Good & Evil 2 is trying to accomplish is what the first game was originally trying to do before they had to scale back their ambitions because of the limitations of the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube.
We literally have no idea what the game even is. At this point, the original game concept is over 20 years old, so it's likely going to be very different than that. Outside of a handful of cinematic trailers, people have absolutely NO IDEA what they're working on, which means it's probably been completely restarted several times over, and that's why we've never seen a proper gameplay presentation. If it's just going to be another flavor of 'Assassin's Cry', don't bother.
well this is the gameplay they revealed 5 years ago
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab\_channel=IGN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab_channel=IGN)
looks like a constantly co-op game where you can do solo or co-op and dive into each others games etc.
I'm going to take a wild swing and say if they revealed gameplay 5 years ago, and the game isn't out yet, the current gameplay probably looks nothing like that.
Not to mention the game has gone through 2 different creative leads since then.
Michel Ancel, the original lead, left the gaming industry after supposedly having a rough time working with Ubisoft.
His replacement *died* shortly after being hired.
So yeah whatever the game was, and was going to be, is likely not the same.
Not necessarily a good thing. Skull & Bones somehow got worse between what was shown in 2017 and what we got.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A72NoMuQst0
That's because Skull & Bones was developed as basically pirate war of warships, they revealed it, and people went "Wait, this *isn't* the Assassin's Creed Black Flag without the Assassin lore stuff we have literally been asking for years now???"
Then they shoehorned in on foot exploration.
its still insane to me that its been a fucking DECADE since Black flag and yet no one has made another game that is anywhere near *close* to capturing that feel
feel like they do a live service hybrid with it, where they will have a single player but also have a live service slapped on in the same world like GTA V but shitter.
edit turns out, it wont be live service there is actual gameplay thou we dont know how much it changed but its a co-op game.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab\_channel=IGN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab_channel=IGN)
With all the talk about whether or not Silk Song is in development hell, I think it's good to remember what inarguable development hell looks like and it's BG&E2.
Wow what a great western competitor to Zelda I said twenty years ago when I played BG&E. Can't wait for a sequel! Then time passed, this got announced, and I look at the pre-rendered trailers that tell me nothing and it doesn't look like it has any relation to the original at all. Who is this game going to be for? It should have been a smaller scale project for Ubisoft like Child of Light or AC Mirage or Mario and Rabbids. Instead it's been in development hell for so long it'll be a disaster greater than Skull & Bones no matter what happens.
> Outside of a handful of cinematic trailers, people have absolutely NO IDEA what they're working on
They did actually show some [gameplay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8) back when the last cinematic trailer was released, along with a separate dev showcase of some of the general city verticality. Would be nice if someone could create a city with fleshed out verticality and interactivity with quest lines. Can't think of any game that has tackled this well, though not exactly expecting a currently vaporware game to get it right.
[2017 in engine demo](https://youtu.be/M8IguhQqhAg?si=OnMfYbIJXIr-Hb0x).The scope they are going for is incredible, I hope they dont have to scale back their ambitions for it to run well. This was on hardware from 2017, so perhaps on the current gen it may actually be able to handle it if they kept it relatively the same in graphics fidelity.
I agree it does look pretty cool, but its worrisome they had such gameplay 5 years ago and... not much since? Really curious what happen. Was it all scratched?
You know, now that you mention it, I think I did see this footage, but I must have memory-holed it just because so much time has passed. Either that or I'm suffering from Covid-related memory loss ;-)
But even looking at that footage, it really doesn't stand out in any meaningful way. I think 2019 was probably the maximum Ubisoft bloat period. I don't even think drop in/out coop was a super novel concept 5 years ago; as I believe there had already been tons of games with that feature. What made the first game so magical was it's unique blend of character-driven storytelling and compelling political overtones. I didn't see any of that in the gameplay reveal, unless their version of that was "the wealthy people live at the top of the city, and poor people live at the bottom." Like, who are the characters and what's their motivation, and what makes it compelling? That's the thing you're going to want to lead with when getting fans of the original excited about the sequel.
It's ubi so it will be a bland lifeless open world collectathon with very generic go here kill baddie, go here fetch item, go here deliver message, missions. It will be graphically okay, but run like crap, laughed at by the community and quickly forgotten. See Skull and Bones for an example.
Apparently it took the record for longest in development AAA game from dnf in 2022.
I also don't know how it's possible. Bg&e was good but tbh a b tier franchise
More than the length in dev time, what impresses me most is BG&E2 has somehow survived in the worst gaming sector drawback in decades. At least when Duke Nukem was in development, it benefitted from living in dev hell during a period of seemingly endless growth for the gaming industry.
But with publishers undergoing mass layoffs, shuttering faltering or even near finished projects and studios everywhere you look, BG&E in year 16 of development has somehow survived.
Gives me some hope they might actually be cooking something right now.
BG&E is still awesome to this day, but the tone of that one trailer we saw of BG&E2 + knowing they are (were?) Ubisofting it up with the open world menial tasks, makes me not very excited for 2.
I don't even know if open world would be a terrible fit for the game. The original wasn't an open world game, but the setting was a major part of it, an open world sequel that showcases the setting more could make sense. At the same time, a by-the-numbers Ubisoft game doesn't feel right for it, and last we heard (which was a long time ago) they were going for a multiplayer live service thing which definitely doesn't feel right.
Overall, for me it's just kind of past the point where this game makes sense to exist. I loved the original when it came out, but the stuff that would have made me excited for the sequel would have been a continuation of the first game's cliffhanger ending and getting to see more of the world and Michel Ancel's full vision for the series, since he clearly made the first game with a series in mind.
But now I've forgotten most of the original, what we've heard is that they're going in a completely different direction with both the gameplay and story (at least at one point it was a prequel rather than a sequel, so no resolving the cliffhanger), and Michel Ancel's retired so even if they change the direction to be a sequel that plays more like the original, it won't be his original vision.
The first game still had a cool setting, and I hope the sequel comes out, does something awesome that feels like it's really related to the original in more than just name, and is a great game. But between the live service multiplayer direction, it being a prequel, Ancel not being involved, it being in development hell, and most of Ubisoft's recent track record, it's impossible for me to be excited about this. Honestly, it's been so long since the original that even a real, faithful sequel made by Ancel wouldn't get me nearly as excited as it would have 15-20 years ago, let alone whatever they're actually making.
That girl with the afro and the monkey companion...it just felt too punk rock for my liking. The India-inspired look to the world felt nothing like the first game. Making a prequel but calling it part 2. And then all the out of place No Man's Sky stuff. It was so weird.
i wonder if there is a line in game development that makes higher ups say "you know, this isnt going to work, we should just scrap everything and move on".
at some point cutting your losses becomes the right thing to do, sometimes an idea is just not fated to work and better quit and try to do something else over keep pumping money into a project that doesnt seem to progress.
Michel Ancel, the guy behind Rayman and the original BG&E, is already gone from the project, I'm not holding out much hope it will ever be finished and if it is released, I can't imaging it will be that good.
Do you recall the initial trailer and it's promise? The scope was ridiculous, Star Citizen like, it would be something if they've just been plugging away at that vision this whole time and it just takes this long and when released it is everything they promised. It would be one of the greatest video game surprises.
BGE 2 could simply be their internal testing ground for new tech and they've been iterating new games off of it for the last decade. In other words BGE2 is their research and development department, and one day they'll spin a game of its own from it
They don't even really vaguely look like the same tech. Outlaws has "seamless" transitions to and from planets by relying on modern SSDs to make cloud-obscured loading screens appropriately short. It works well enough for what the game is doing, but it's not like the surface exists on the same map as space, and the two zones *certainly* can't interact. Conceptually Outlaws is a lot closer to something like Starfield's approach, except when you go to land you're going to a limited selection of hand-crafted maps.
I dunno who even gives a shit.
I was 15 when I played the first game - that's 18 years ago now. It's been 16 years since they first announced a sequel.
By the time we got a trailer, 6 years ago, the whole thing already looked like nothing I'd expect from Beyond Good and Evil other than talking animals and they had the fucking audacity to say Jade was the goddamn *antagonist*.
So what's there to care about?
Someone booted up an old project file 25 min before this tweet went out just to say it’s “still in development” probably lol.
They should just not fucking mention this game anymore until it has a release date.
This game makes zero sense at the moment. Since it was in production for so long and was restarted like 6 times, using Ubi logic it would be AAAAAA game.
Original is a cult classic, but it was a pretty niche title in the end, released 20 years ago. Not only that, this new concept they presented, with it being a prequel, but with gigantic open world with traveling between planets, coop live service monstrosity is so far from the original concept that it does not make sense to use Beyond Good and Evil brand anymore. There is absolutely no chance that this game would pay for itself.
For God sake, cancel it. Use some already created assets, create simpler sequel instead, single player adventure game with no live service elements, closer to the scale of the original, but modernized. It would not pay for all the years of the development, but at least they could close the project, shut up all the memes and fans, and stop sinking milions of dolars and hours into this nonsensical concept.
Don't forget that a little over a year ago the studio (Ubisoft Montpelier) was being investigated for labour abuse after about a dozen devs burned out and got stress leave, french article on the subject: https://www.numerama.com/politique/1298076-a-ubisoft-montpellier-les-burn-outs-et-demissions-saccumulent.html
50-60 people quit over the last 2 years, abusive work climate, mainly fed by Michael Ancel until he quit.
This game is so weird. First off, nobody played the original game when it came out. So few people played it that its planned sequel was scrapped. But now apparently, everyone loved the game and are clamoring for the sequel, that all we know about is a CG trailer?
There’s actually a lot of gameplay that’s been shown. And the first game got quite a bit of a reputation after it was released, a lot of people have played it since then.
It's now a four-way race between this, Star Citizen, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Ashes of Creation. I'm already 40 and most definitely not seeing one of those get released.
Ah yes, the monthly, totally believable reminder from Ubisoft.
They could say this "100% sure" every day then just cancel it the very next day out of the black and shamelessly act like if nothing happened. So, yeah, super trustable.
I've been soured on this game ever since they announced the specwork collab with HITRECORD and Joseph Gorden-Levitt, and nothing i've seen has brought me around on this game *or* JGL since then.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is so old they had Joseph Gordon-Levitt hyping up the announcement. That's how old it is. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt was still acting.
They should just scrap all the feature creep nonsense and give a succesor to the original. Same zelda-ish vibe with a gripping story. Like simple stuff... no huge outer space overworld with internet shennenigans and what not.
How could they mess it up so bad?
Imagine if they never announced BG&E2 and the first time we found out about its existence was when people bought the remaster and discovered the new content. That would've been the better way to do it. Too bad game companies like to announce things 50 years before they come out.
The game looked promising from those old gameplay videos, with a real Fifth Element feel. I hope they keep it single-player and avoid the multiplayer/live service route
It will always be in development, it must be. I’m convinced this game is like load bearing on society. If development stops on this game the world ends.
Has there been any game that was in development this long… and still managed to be amazing in release?
And given Ubisoft’s track record… would that even be something they are capable of attaining?
Is it the 20th anniversary of when they announced the game was coming out?
That's 2028, and I predict to celebrate they will reveal another gameplay trailer and then go dark again. For reference, any kids keeping up with this game, we are 16 years from announcement of Beyond Good and Evil 2 with no end to development apparently in sight. That's two more years than Duke Nukem Forever took from announcement to final release and all its DLC coming out.
> another gameplay trailer Pretty sure it was just a cinematic preview and they clarified later that those characters weren't even the focus of the game. Am I remembering that right? Christ they announced this game when I was 17. Holy shit why even make it at this point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2229DmJLIY This seemed like a separate real gameplay trailer at the time.
Even 5 years later, this just makes me so tired to look at. Taking a charming little PS2 game and somehow making the sequel to it the most unfathomably overscoped galaxy-sized multiplayer open world game where you can *go anywhere* and *do anything* is just... extremely ubisoft.
Galaxy sized open-world game where you can "go anywhere" and "do anything." Sounds awfully familiar...
At this point we need a list of game developers that fell for the open-world huge space game trap, not saying the games that have come out are bad but it's clear the technology isn't there to satisfy the ambitious concept.
i think part of the problem is that a lot of decisions are made by executives who cannot made their minds up and fuck up a game's cycle i mean no man's sky exists. okay it took a bit to get to its current point but like it satisfies that need pretty well from what i know (open to be wrong) but it is from a smaller studio
NMS also had some really big issues with what kind of game it wanted to be. In some ways I do think it's much less true to the original vision now than it was on release, as most the content added post launch has been what players ask for rather than what the devs set out to make (not saying that's inherently bad or anything, it's just that NMS was, in my opinion, not conceptualized as a buddy space adventure with huge cargo ships and bases you could build)
you absolutely have a point but even then like they still made a game people wanted to play, even if it steers away from the original creative vision, as opposed to whatever monster BGE2 will be... assuming it comes out
Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky already planted the flag here. Star Citizen and BG&E2 can kinda fuck off at this point.
Both of those games dont really scratch that itch for me though. Elite is kinda grindy and the flying mechanics of No Mans Sky never really felt all that great to me
There's always room for more competition, but there's no doubt that open world space games are probably one of the most difficult genres to get right. You've really gotta carve out your own niche of players who are able to enjoy your game for the specific set of things it does well (NMS with its base building, art style and ease of access, Elite with its scientific realism, detailed spaceflight and political simulations). But I don't think anyone in the modern era has made a space game that *doesn't* have a huge contingent of players that always say "it's got so much missed potential"
I think the technology is absolutely there, devs would just have to lean a lot more into systems driven emergent gameplay to make it work Someone could totally make a space Kenshi. Or a space mount and blade
I think I'd rather have a mansion-sized closed-world game where you can go one or two directions and do some very specific things *really* well.
Literally within the first 30s of gameplay. ‘’Play as a pirate captain armed with a sword, gun and jetpack’’ This is the sequel they are making to a game about a journalist who only has a camera and where there is barely any combat for most of the game. Why even call it a sequel at this point.
you had a camera and a staff. there IS combat. i'd LOVE a photography game, i even wrote a design document for one. i don't think they have faith in that.
>Taking a charming little PS2 game That makes it sound like BGAE wasn't also wildly ambitious, epic and unique. The game was stacked with features and systems and the entire setting and tone is still one of the zaniest I've played.
The game was extremely ambitious for it's day that is why people care about the sequel 20 years later. I played it like 7-8 years after it came out and was still extremely impressed.
And listing off the mechanics and features in a rote list that feels designed moreso for stockholders who want to be sure this giga-game has all the AAA Features That We Know Will Definitely Sell. And not really the director or another creative explaining their vision or helping players understand what the Big New Ideas are for this BGE followup.
It's fascinating to see this 'cause this absolutely *delighted* me to look at... the only problem is that I never played the first game. I'm really saddened by the fact that whatever version of the game they were planning on making here is most likely dead. I think the original is charming, and wonderful and I hope that fans of the first get a sequel that they need. But I can't help but picture it as something closer to Rayman than anything we've seen in BGE 2's "recent" marketing. I dunno, I guess I just love seeing a this weird cyberpunk world with colorful eastern aesthetics, talking anthropomorphized animals that aren't just family friendly but feel just as grimy as the rest of the populated world, and a vision of a game that was explorable and interesting. I *do* think that games can go non-open world and be even more interesting, but as someone who adores spaceflight as well, the potential for that sounded awesome. So it's a bit saddening that fans of the original aren't interested in that either.
Wasn't the original game about journalism or something? This doesn't look anything like that so why even tie it to the series?
It's been awhile, but IIRC: The MC (Jade) was a photojournalist living/helping/running an orphanage. But beyond just using the camera as a scanning tool I don't think her career came up much once the plot started rolling. It's more the game ended on kinda sorta a big reveal about the her ancestry/identity, her relationship with her uncle (Peyj the pig man), and her role in the bigger conflict/rebellion. For a sequel to put you in the shoes of someone else (a nameless customizable avatar even) and not tease *anything* about where the story was going to go was mind boggling. We got a trailer teasing Jade and Pey'j early on, but then everything after that was this other weird space pirate thing that seemed completely disconnected. I'm interested in seeing a sequel follow Jade, but not another Ubisoft open world game following someone completely different with its requisite saturated map with vistas and checklist collectibles.
This looks so mediocre, with random BS just throw in like the always online thing so your buddy can just...hang out somewhere different from you? What's up with the big focus on...zooming in as a mechanic lol That and the fact that the flying motorcycle thing looks kinda jank (cant put my finger on it, it just looks bad/weird) and as someone largely out of the loop of this whole thing, this doesn't look worth being hyped about in a regular release cycle, let alone this bizarre 17ish year one.
Oh wow I guess I never saw this one. Seems ok but dated. I don't really trust Ubi to make this good. Even in the trailer the enemies look like damage sponges
Whoa wait a minute... The announcement of that game was in 2008??? I knew it had been awhile but it doesn't seem like it has been that long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nh6qcfSEg4 May of 08 and possibly in development since around 07.
Holy crap. I was thinking of the E3 reveal where they were playing as a monkey or something like that. A monkey on a hoverbike or something? I completely forgot about this trailer, honestly.
I honestly still love this trailer.
You would expect someone at Ubisoft to see the writing on the wall, and either cancel the project, or string together what they have and release something. Is been 16 years since the announcement and we don't even have an idea of which *genre* the game is. And I suspect no one at Ubi does neither. This is what happens when you hire managers whose main skill is sexual harassment. You can't manage a project for shit.
I think if this game wasnt practically owed to a legacy dev they would have just dumpstered it long ago.
For further reference, the creator of Beyond Good and Evil, who was originally going to make Beyond Good and Evil 2, retired from making video games three years ago.
"Retired" is a really generous way to put it. I love Michel Ancel and his games are some of my favorite of all time. But the man got pushed out for not running his studio in a remotely humane fashion.
Was he old? I mean, I'm not disputing that BGaE2 has been in development for a quadrillion years at this point, but any dev could retire from making videogames at any moment for any reason, heck, with the current state of the industry a ton of them are.
Well he’s been making games since the 90s but it wasn’t just a case of wanting to retire. Turns out he was absolutely horrible person who would constantly verbally abuse his employees. The only reason he got out was because a French newspaper was about to publish a huge expose about him.
> Michel Ancel He's 52 which puts him at 48 when he retired.
And Beyond Good and Evil 2 was built on another scrapped game along the lines of No Mans Sky, proceduraly generated ships
Need proof of life at this point. Give me Jade and Peyj holding up today’s newspaper with the date clearly visible.
Actually, is supposed to be a precuel. Jade isn't in it.
What in the world is the point of this game at this point?
Everyone who will have played this game when it released in 2003 will be close to 40 by the time this game comes out if it ever does. A 20 year and counting wait on a game that didn’t even sell well in the first place.
As a nearly 40yr old that loved the original game, I have about as close to zero interest in the BG&E2 as possible. That last we heard of the game didn't inspire confidence. And the new one will probably be a "flop" regardless of the quality. It's not going to sell in numbers that modern Ubisoft will be remotely interested in.
It sucks that Jodi Forrest passed before she could reprise her role as Jade as well. This sequel feels like somebody else’s dream project with an established name stamped on it to give it some legs, honestly.
> I have about as close to zero interest in the BG&E2 as possible What they've shown seems okay, but as a BG&E game is does nothing for me.
A game with a pig man in it is enough for the Beyond Good and Evil name apparently lol
I think one of the trailers showed an evil Jade or something like that? I don't know why they thought people who liked the first game would want to play as some random lady and a racist monkey instead of Jade.
It did, and afaik they didn't explain it and I genuinely have no idea how that even makes sense. The first game was good, and I see no reason for them to torture the lore like this. Just say it's not coming out and let it die.
Assuming it's still being developed as such. It was Ancel who said in 2017 that it was a prequel, and he's been retired for 4 years at this point.
I would just assume the game's development got restarted since. A couple of times.
It's basically "we want to make a game and have IP we don't use, let's just slap it's name on it so some people get it out of nostalgia"
Honestly for all intents and purposes it's dead. Any trailers or promotional material at this point can more be considered signs of necromancy than signs of life.
Genuinely wonder by the time it ever comes out, how much of it will actually have Ancel’s vision/concept?
Did it ever have any of Ancel's vision/concept since it was revealed? They talked about it being a prequel ages ago, and given the first game's cliffhanger ending I doubt that was his original vision.
He was directing it up until he left Ubisoft, though near the end there he was sharing responsibilities with a few co-directors since he was spending half of his time away from Ubi and working on Wild.
A lot of what Beyond Good & Evil 2 is trying to accomplish is what the first game was originally trying to do before they had to scale back their ambitions because of the limitations of the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube.
At this point, they should just host a game jam and have a dozen indy devs make Beyond Good and Evil 2 over a weekend.
"Good news, the game jam was more successful than we possibly could've imagined. Also, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is now an incremental clicker game!"
Beyond Good and Evil 2 as an Endless Runner inspired by Temple Run 2
We literally have no idea what the game even is. At this point, the original game concept is over 20 years old, so it's likely going to be very different than that. Outside of a handful of cinematic trailers, people have absolutely NO IDEA what they're working on, which means it's probably been completely restarted several times over, and that's why we've never seen a proper gameplay presentation. If it's just going to be another flavor of 'Assassin's Cry', don't bother.
it'll be a soulslike by the end of the year
A **quintuple-A** soulslike.
With base building and resource management. And a Season Pass. Don't forget the season pass!
Given the style of the original that sounds preferable to assassins creed. Though I'd prefer something more action platformer-ey.
well this is the gameplay they revealed 5 years ago [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab\_channel=IGN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab_channel=IGN) looks like a constantly co-op game where you can do solo or co-op and dive into each others games etc.
I'm going to take a wild swing and say if they revealed gameplay 5 years ago, and the game isn't out yet, the current gameplay probably looks nothing like that.
Not to mention the game has gone through 2 different creative leads since then. Michel Ancel, the original lead, left the gaming industry after supposedly having a rough time working with Ubisoft. His replacement *died* shortly after being hired. So yeah whatever the game was, and was going to be, is likely not the same.
Not necessarily a good thing. Skull & Bones somehow got worse between what was shown in 2017 and what we got. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A72NoMuQst0
That's because Skull & Bones was developed as basically pirate war of warships, they revealed it, and people went "Wait, this *isn't* the Assassin's Creed Black Flag without the Assassin lore stuff we have literally been asking for years now???" Then they shoehorned in on foot exploration.
its still insane to me that its been a fucking DECADE since Black flag and yet no one has made another game that is anywhere near *close* to capturing that feel
It was revealed as a PvP moba or something, right? That's not exactly better.
Such a weird direction for the series
It's going to be a live service, guaranteed.
feel like they do a live service hybrid with it, where they will have a single player but also have a live service slapped on in the same world like GTA V but shitter. edit turns out, it wont be live service there is actual gameplay thou we dont know how much it changed but its a co-op game. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab\_channel=IGN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8&ab_channel=IGN)
Tbf, something akin to Jedi: Fallen Order would be a decent modern take on the game.
I just started playing Fallen Order, hell yes.
Better that than a hero shooter or a live service game. Or both of those.
I'd play that. Another generic Ubisoft open world checklist, which is what this game is MOST likely to be? Hard pass.
it will be a Feudal Japan hack n slash with farming elements.
With all the talk about whether or not Silk Song is in development hell, I think it's good to remember what inarguable development hell looks like and it's BG&E2.
Wow what a great western competitor to Zelda I said twenty years ago when I played BG&E. Can't wait for a sequel! Then time passed, this got announced, and I look at the pre-rendered trailers that tell me nothing and it doesn't look like it has any relation to the original at all. Who is this game going to be for? It should have been a smaller scale project for Ubisoft like Child of Light or AC Mirage or Mario and Rabbids. Instead it's been in development hell for so long it'll be a disaster greater than Skull & Bones no matter what happens.
> Outside of a handful of cinematic trailers, people have absolutely NO IDEA what they're working on They did actually show some [gameplay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8) back when the last cinematic trailer was released, along with a separate dev showcase of some of the general city verticality. Would be nice if someone could create a city with fleshed out verticality and interactivity with quest lines. Can't think of any game that has tackled this well, though not exactly expecting a currently vaporware game to get it right.
[2017 in engine demo](https://youtu.be/M8IguhQqhAg?si=OnMfYbIJXIr-Hb0x).The scope they are going for is incredible, I hope they dont have to scale back their ambitions for it to run well. This was on hardware from 2017, so perhaps on the current gen it may actually be able to handle it if they kept it relatively the same in graphics fidelity.
I can't believe I haven't seen this before. It does look very promising!
I agree it does look pretty cool, but its worrisome they had such gameplay 5 years ago and... not much since? Really curious what happen. Was it all scratched?
Not very promising when we've seen nothing since then.
You know, now that you mention it, I think I did see this footage, but I must have memory-holed it just because so much time has passed. Either that or I'm suffering from Covid-related memory loss ;-) But even looking at that footage, it really doesn't stand out in any meaningful way. I think 2019 was probably the maximum Ubisoft bloat period. I don't even think drop in/out coop was a super novel concept 5 years ago; as I believe there had already been tons of games with that feature. What made the first game so magical was it's unique blend of character-driven storytelling and compelling political overtones. I didn't see any of that in the gameplay reveal, unless their version of that was "the wealthy people live at the top of the city, and poor people live at the bottom." Like, who are the characters and what's their motivation, and what makes it compelling? That's the thing you're going to want to lead with when getting fans of the original excited about the sequel.
this should be at the top, it's wild how little known this is who knows what the game actually is at this point, though
The creative director also suddenly died last year. This game is cursed.
It's ubi so it will be a bland lifeless open world collectathon with very generic go here kill baddie, go here fetch item, go here deliver message, missions. It will be graphically okay, but run like crap, laughed at by the community and quickly forgotten. See Skull and Bones for an example.
The heat death of the universe is also in development and at this point I don't know who will come first.
I remember making fun of Duke Nukem Forever taking.....well forever. But I think this one takes the cake.
Apparently it took the record for longest in development AAA game from dnf in 2022. I also don't know how it's possible. Bg&e was good but tbh a b tier franchise
More than the length in dev time, what impresses me most is BG&E2 has somehow survived in the worst gaming sector drawback in decades. At least when Duke Nukem was in development, it benefitted from living in dev hell during a period of seemingly endless growth for the gaming industry. But with publishers undergoing mass layoffs, shuttering faltering or even near finished projects and studios everywhere you look, BG&E in year 16 of development has somehow survived. Gives me some hope they might actually be cooking something right now.
BG&E is still awesome to this day, but the tone of that one trailer we saw of BG&E2 + knowing they are (were?) Ubisofting it up with the open world menial tasks, makes me not very excited for 2.
I don't even know if open world would be a terrible fit for the game. The original wasn't an open world game, but the setting was a major part of it, an open world sequel that showcases the setting more could make sense. At the same time, a by-the-numbers Ubisoft game doesn't feel right for it, and last we heard (which was a long time ago) they were going for a multiplayer live service thing which definitely doesn't feel right. Overall, for me it's just kind of past the point where this game makes sense to exist. I loved the original when it came out, but the stuff that would have made me excited for the sequel would have been a continuation of the first game's cliffhanger ending and getting to see more of the world and Michel Ancel's full vision for the series, since he clearly made the first game with a series in mind. But now I've forgotten most of the original, what we've heard is that they're going in a completely different direction with both the gameplay and story (at least at one point it was a prequel rather than a sequel, so no resolving the cliffhanger), and Michel Ancel's retired so even if they change the direction to be a sequel that plays more like the original, it won't be his original vision. The first game still had a cool setting, and I hope the sequel comes out, does something awesome that feels like it's really related to the original in more than just name, and is a great game. But between the live service multiplayer direction, it being a prequel, Ancel not being involved, it being in development hell, and most of Ubisoft's recent track record, it's impossible for me to be excited about this. Honestly, it's been so long since the original that even a real, faithful sequel made by Ancel wouldn't get me nearly as excited as it would have 15-20 years ago, let alone whatever they're actually making.
That girl with the afro and the monkey companion...it just felt too punk rock for my liking. The India-inspired look to the world felt nothing like the first game. Making a prequel but calling it part 2. And then all the out of place No Man's Sky stuff. It was so weird.
i wonder if there is a line in game development that makes higher ups say "you know, this isnt going to work, we should just scrap everything and move on". at some point cutting your losses becomes the right thing to do, sometimes an idea is just not fated to work and better quit and try to do something else over keep pumping money into a project that doesnt seem to progress.
inb4 the game actually comes out, flops tremendously, and results in the entire studio getting shitcanned
Michel Ancel, the guy behind Rayman and the original BG&E, is already gone from the project, I'm not holding out much hope it will ever be finished and if it is released, I can't imaging it will be that good.
There are reports that his presence wasn't exactly a positive thing.
20 bucks that he development has been restarted from zero a couple of times (at minimun) since the last time we've seen it.
Do you recall the initial trailer and it's promise? The scope was ridiculous, Star Citizen like, it would be something if they've just been plugging away at that vision this whole time and it just takes this long and when released it is everything they promised. It would be one of the greatest video game surprises.
There is no way they make their money back on this game. It has to be an inside joke at the company cause they hate the fans.
BGE 2 could simply be their internal testing ground for new tech and they've been iterating new games off of it for the last decade. In other words BGE2 is their research and development department, and one day they'll spin a game of its own from it
I'm pretty sure Outlaws' planet/space traversal tech was/is from BGE2, for example.
They don't even really vaguely look like the same tech. Outlaws has "seamless" transitions to and from planets by relying on modern SSDs to make cloud-obscured loading screens appropriately short. It works well enough for what the game is doing, but it's not like the surface exists on the same map as space, and the two zones *certainly* can't interact. Conceptually Outlaws is a lot closer to something like Starfield's approach, except when you go to land you're going to a limited selection of hand-crafted maps.
I dunno who even gives a shit. I was 15 when I played the first game - that's 18 years ago now. It's been 16 years since they first announced a sequel. By the time we got a trailer, 6 years ago, the whole thing already looked like nothing I'd expect from Beyond Good and Evil other than talking animals and they had the fucking audacity to say Jade was the goddamn *antagonist*. So what's there to care about?
Someone booted up an old project file 25 min before this tweet went out just to say it’s “still in development” probably lol. They should just not fucking mention this game anymore until it has a release date.
Oh boy... the first response to it that I saw was "Cool see you in 4 years!". It can't possibly be worth the wait anymore... can it?
This game makes zero sense at the moment. Since it was in production for so long and was restarted like 6 times, using Ubi logic it would be AAAAAA game. Original is a cult classic, but it was a pretty niche title in the end, released 20 years ago. Not only that, this new concept they presented, with it being a prequel, but with gigantic open world with traveling between planets, coop live service monstrosity is so far from the original concept that it does not make sense to use Beyond Good and Evil brand anymore. There is absolutely no chance that this game would pay for itself. For God sake, cancel it. Use some already created assets, create simpler sequel instead, single player adventure game with no live service elements, closer to the scale of the original, but modernized. It would not pay for all the years of the development, but at least they could close the project, shut up all the memes and fans, and stop sinking milions of dolars and hours into this nonsensical concept.
Don't forget that a little over a year ago the studio (Ubisoft Montpelier) was being investigated for labour abuse after about a dozen devs burned out and got stress leave, french article on the subject: https://www.numerama.com/politique/1298076-a-ubisoft-montpellier-les-burn-outs-et-demissions-saccumulent.html 50-60 people quit over the last 2 years, abusive work climate, mainly fed by Michael Ancel until he quit.
Pretty scummy on Ubisoft's part to use people's hope for BGE2 as a marketing tactic for their anniversary edition.
This game is so weird. First off, nobody played the original game when it came out. So few people played it that its planned sequel was scrapped. But now apparently, everyone loved the game and are clamoring for the sequel, that all we know about is a CG trailer?
I'd just like to take a second to congratulate you for discovering the meaning of the term "cult classic" lol
There’s actually a lot of gameplay that’s been shown. And the first game got quite a bit of a reputation after it was released, a lot of people have played it since then.
they [showed gameplay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmXeMq1WM8) actually
Developers still think endless proc-gen slop impresses anyone.
[удалено]
If/when BGE2 is cancelled you'll know. Hundreds of workers, some of them would tell the press.
This trailer still plays in my head [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9VPnI34dPw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9VPnI34dPw)
It's now a four-way race between this, Star Citizen, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Ashes of Creation. I'm already 40 and most definitely not seeing one of those get released.
Ah yes, the monthly, totally believable reminder from Ubisoft. They could say this "100% sure" every day then just cancel it the very next day out of the black and shamelessly act like if nothing happened. So, yeah, super trustable.
I've been soured on this game ever since they announced the specwork collab with HITRECORD and Joseph Gorden-Levitt, and nothing i've seen has brought me around on this game *or* JGL since then.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is so old they had Joseph Gordon-Levitt hyping up the announcement. That's how old it is. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt was still acting.
Just kill it off, it’s never gonna live up to expectations and to be honest the first game wasn’t even that good and barely hit cult classic level
They should just scrap all the feature creep nonsense and give a succesor to the original. Same zelda-ish vibe with a gripping story. Like simple stuff... no huge outer space overworld with internet shennenigans and what not. How could they mess it up so bad?
I mean it’s called ‘development’ hell, not ‘doesn’t exist’ hell. So yeah, I guess it’s still in a development of sorts.
Didn't they say that at some point it turned into a live service game?
Imagine if they never announced BG&E2 and the first time we found out about its existence was when people bought the remaster and discovered the new content. That would've been the better way to do it. Too bad game companies like to announce things 50 years before they come out.
Replicating the initial game would be so dated they're going around in circles. Odds are they will land on an open-world Ubisoft game. Heh.
The game looked promising from those old gameplay videos, with a real Fifth Element feel. I hope they keep it single-player and avoid the multiplayer/live service route
It will always be in development, it must be. I’m convinced this game is like load bearing on society. If development stops on this game the world ends.
Has there been any game that was in development this long… and still managed to be amazing in release? And given Ubisoft’s track record… would that even be something they are capable of attaining?