The Beyond Good And Evil 2 trailer that Ubisoft released right at the end of its press conference took everyone by surprise. It was witty, beautiful and painted a lush and vibrant world. However, the trailer may be the only real thing to the game.
In an interview with The Verge, creator Michel Ancel gave some details about Beyond Good And Evil 2 , or rather what he wants the game to be like. While the game may have been announced originally in 2008, the game we saw at this year’s E3 is a completely separate beast. What was originally planned as a sequel to Beyond Good And Evil is now a prequel. This is because the team at Ubisoft Montpellier wants a game that players need context to enjoy.
With the shift in the game’s setting, this led to the team working on tech instead of making a game. This tech, which started as a solar system simulation tool, is now an integral part of Beyond Good And Evil 2.
“When you don’t have this technology, you can’t really start the game,” Ancel told The Verge. “It’s too difficult. But now we can say for sure that we will make this game, we’ll finish it. Because we have the technology for it.”
Wait, Ancel is just now confirming that Ubisoft “will make this game?” But what about that fancy trailer? Based on Ancel’s quote, the game is still at “day zero of development” and it seems that the trailer is really more of an idea to aim for rather than something to promote a real game.
So what are the gameplay plans for Beyond Good And Evil 2? The idea is for players to create a character and start at the bottom rung of society. By playing the game, players will work up the ranks to owning a spaceship and being the captain of a crew.
But once you get your ship, the game isn’t done.
“You explore, you discover new cultures, those cultures are adapted to the planet, and then you can customize your ship based on what you discover on the planet,” Ancel said.
Unfortunately, the way Ancel is describing the game has my No Man’s Sky alarms triggering. It sounds like the team is aiming incredibly high and giving themselves little room for failure. There’s procedurally generated worlds, single-player moments, online co-op gameplay, an overarching story as well as small systemic events that happen based on your actions and all those other buzzwords of gaming.
Ancel is also planning on doing an Early Access-type deal for development. Ideally, he would invite a community of players to test prototypes and provide feedback. While Early Access makes sense for certain games, and especially games with little to no development budget, it’s not the best look to see a AAA publisher doing the same.
While all this sounds rocky to begin with, Ancel’s comments make it seem like the team slapped everything together with tape at the last second, and real development has barely begun. The Verge is reporting that a tech demo had placeholder graphics, with Ancel adding that “two weeks ago there were no graphics.” Now that the trailer and tech demo are out, Ancel added that “there’s still a lot of work to do, but we now really believe that we’re going to make this game.”
That’s not exactly the words of confidence I would hope for a game getting paraded around at E3 alongside other games with real plans and firm release dates.
So what do you think? Are you happy to see that Beyond Good And Evil 2 isn’t dead? Do you share my sense of reservation instead of getting excited? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
