It has been nearly twenty years. Let that sink in for a second. If you were a teenager when the original Jade and Pey'j adventure dropped on the GameCube and PS2, you’re likely staring down the barrel of middle age now. Yet, here we are, still talking about Beyond Good and Evil 2. It is the video game industry’s ultimate ghost ship. You see it on the horizon, you hear the creak of its timbers, but every time you try to board it, the fog rolls in and the ship vanishes.
Honestly, the development cycle of this game is more dramatic than the actual plot of most AAA titles. We’ve seen cinematic trailers that looked like they cost more than a small country’s GDP. We’ve seen Michel Ancel—the visionary behind the first game—walk away from the industry entirely to work at a wildlife sanctuary. We’ve seen Ubisoft Montpellier go through leadership changes that would make a corporate consultant weep. But through all the silence, the official word remains: it is still in development.
Is it, though? Or is Beyond Good and Evil 2 just a line item on a spreadsheet used to keep investors from panicking about Ubisoft's release schedule?
The Prequel Pivot and the Scale Problem
The biggest shock for fans wasn't just that the game was coming back; it was that it wasn't a sequel. It’s a prequel. We are looking at System 3, a solar system in the 24th century where humans and hybrid animals are essentially a slave class used to colonize the stars. You aren't playing as Jade. You’re playing as a custom-created space pirate.
This shift changed everything.
The original game was a tight, focused, 10-hour action-adventure with a heavy emphasis on stealth and photography. It was charming. It was manageable. Beyond Good and Evil 2, on the other hand, is trying to be everything at once. It’s a seamless open-world space sim where you can fly from a city street, into a ship, out of the atmosphere, and onto another planet without a loading screen. That is an insane technical hurdle.
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Think about the math for a second. When you scale a game to that level, the "hand-crafted" feel of the first game usually dies. You end up with procedural generation—a lot of empty space and repetitive assets. Ubisoft tried to solve this with their "Space Monkey Program," basically a way to crowd-source assets and ideas from the community. It was a neat PR move, but it also signaled that the studio was drowning in the sheer volume of content needed to fill a galaxy.
A Timeline of Broken Promises
- 2008: A teaser drops. We see a fly-ridden Pey'j by a broken-down car. The world loses its mind. Then... silence for nearly a decade.
- 2017: The E3 "rebirth." A cinematic trailer featuring a foul-mouthed monkey and a massive, sprawling city. This is where the prequel concept was confirmed.
- 2018: We see actual gameplay. Sort of. It’s technical demos showing off the engine's ability to handle massive scale. It looks ambitious. It looks impossible.
- 2020: Michel Ancel leaves. This was the turning point for most skeptics. When the creator exits, the vision usually follows. Ubisoft claimed the project was in good hands, but the vibe shifted.
- 2023/2024: Constant rumors of cancellation are met with "Development is underway" tweets from the official Ubisoft accounts.
Why This Game is So Hard to Build
The technical debt here is massive. You've got to understand that the engine used for Beyond Good and Evil 2—the Voyager engine—was built from the ground up specifically for this game. Most studios use Unreal or a modified version of an existing internal engine. Building a proprietary engine while simultaneously trying to build a game that breaks the laws of traditional level design is like trying to build a plane while it's mid-takeoff.
There's also the "Ubisoft Formula" conflict.
Ubisoft is famous for its map-clearing, icon-heavy open worlds like Assassin's Creed or Far Cry. But Beyond Good and Evil 2 was pitched as something more soulful, more experimental. There is a fundamental friction between a corporate need for "engagement metrics" and a creative desire to build a weird, political space opera about hybrid animal rights.
The scope creep is the real killer. It’s not just a space sim. It’s a combat game. It’s a co-op game. It’s a story-driven RPG. It’s a social hub. When you try to make a game that is "the ultimate everything," you often end up with a "refined nothing."
The Michel Ancel Controversy
We can't talk about this game without talking about the workplace culture reports that surfaced around Ancel’s departure. Investigations by French outlet Libération painted a picture of a project plagued by "toxic" management and a lack of clear direction. Developers reportedly felt the vision changed every few months. One day it’s a small indie-style game; the next, it’s a galactic epic.
This kind of "creative whiplash" burns people out. It leads to talent bleed. When the senior developers who know how the engine works leave, the new people spend six months just trying to figure out where the code is kept. This is the cycle that keeps games in development hell for decades.
What We Actually Know About the Gameplay
Despite the chaos, some concrete details have emerged over the years. We know the game revolves around the "Legend of the Moksha Gate." You are a captain. You have a crew. You have a mother ship.
- Customization: You can be a human or a hybrid (like a shark-man or a monkey-person). This isn't just cosmetic; it supposedly affects how NPCs interact with you in the world.
- The World: System 3 is a hub of corporate greed. Planets like Ganesha City are dense, vertical environments inspired by Indian architecture and futuristic sci-fi.
- The Combat: It's a mix of third-person melee and ship-to-ship dogfighting. There’s a heavy emphasis on using a jetpack for verticality.
- The Tone: It is much darker than the first game. The trailers show a gritty, swear-heavy, high-stakes underworld. Some fans love this; others feel it loses the "Zelda-esque" whimsy of the original.
Is the Dream Dead?
Honestly? It's complicated.
In early 2023, Ubisoft canceled several unannounced projects due to "challenges in the industry." Yet, they specifically went out of their way to tell journalists that Beyond Good and Evil 2 was still alive. It holds the Guinness World Record for the longest development period for a AAA video game, surpassing Duke Nukem Forever.
That's not a record you want.
The game has become a "Sunk Cost Fallacy" masterpiece. Ubisoft has spent so much money on it that walking away feels like an admission of total failure. But at the same time, the longer it takes, the more dated those 2018 gameplay promises look. The industry has moved on. Starfield happened. No Man's Sky evolved into a juggernaut. The "seamless space travel" novelty isn't as novel as it used to be.
The Actionable Reality for Fans
If you're waiting for this game, you need to change your strategy. Don't look for a release date. Don't look for pre-orders. Here is the realistic way to engage with this project right now.
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Treat it as a Tech Demo, Not a Product
The Voyager engine is the real star here. Even if the game never comes out, the tech being built for it will likely end up in the next Assassin's Creed or Star Wars game. Understanding the technical hurdles of the engine explains why the game is taking so long.
Revisit the Original (The Right Way)
Ubisoft recently released the Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary Edition. If you want to understand why people are so obsessed with this franchise, play that. It has a new treasure hunt that actually links the story of the first game to the prequel. It’s the only "new" content we’ve had in years.
Follow the Credits, Not the Brands
Keep an eye on the developers leaving Ubisoft Montpellier. When key leads move to other studios, that’s usually a better indicator of a project's health than a corporate press release. Sarah Arellano, the former lead writer, moved on a while ago. That tells you the script has likely gone through another major revision.
Lower Your Expectations for "Seamlessness"
The 2018 promise of a perfectly seamless galaxy is probably going to be scaled back. Expect more "instanced" zones and loading screens disguised as "warp drives" or atmospheric entry sequences. It’s the only way to make the game stable on modern consoles.
Watch the Ubisoft Forward Events with Skepticism
If you see a cinematic trailer without a "Captured in Engine" watermark and a firm release year, ignore it. Cinematic trailers are marketing tools, not progress reports.
The story of Beyond Good and Evil 2 is no longer about a game. It's about the limits of the AAA development model. It’s about what happens when a vision is too big for the technology of its time, and the politics of the studio building it. We might play it one day. It might even be good. But it will almost certainly be a different game than the one we were promised back in 2017.
The best thing you can do is stop holding your breath. Go play something else. If the "Space Monkeys" ever actually take flight, it’ll be a surprise to everyone—Ubisoft included.