"Its combat is very reminiscent of Insomniac's Spider-Man games."
Beyond Good & Evil 2 is reportedly still in pre-production a staggering 18 years after it was first announced, and it has apparently evolved from being a multiplayer-first project to being "solo-first" and story based, with additional, optional co-op.
Origami Media (in a French report translated by DeepL) said it heard from several people close to the game's development that the idea for Beyond Good and Evil 2, in 2019-2022, was for the game to be "highly multiplayer and connected", featuring "a multitude of planets" where players would be matchmade and play together. Sound familiar? It's supposed to.
"The key concept was the 'third place' - a spot where you might hang out with mates after work, just as you would in Fortnite or Destiny," Origami shared, "which were cited as sources of inspiration. You played as a blank character, tagging along on the adventures of the heroes of Beyond Good & Evil, in the passenger seat."
But since then, the project "evolved", from smaller matchmade groups to more open-ended play, then to team-based play in groups of four and finally, to pairs. "The aim now is to offer a 'solo-first' adventure, with no mandatory online connection and featuring a strong narrative that can also be played in co-op," Origami stated.
"A few years ago, some people thought it bore a resemblance to Zelda in space; today, its combat is very reminiscent of Insomniac's Spider-Man games."
Yet despite its incredible length of time in development - I was at the Paris-based UbiDays event in 2008 when Ubisoft revealed the first CGI trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 - the game is apparently yet to enter full production. "If we go by the terminology used at Ubisoft and in many other major companies in the sector," Origami went on, "production of BGE2 has not yet begun. It is currently in pre-production, which still involves at least 250 people (at Ubisoft Montpellier alone). And this project is now aiming to move into the alpha phase."
According to the report, "Historically, BGE2 has failed to meet all its creative milestones." These are referred to as "gates", which sound like playable builds of the game, and it kept missing these because ideas about the game kept changing. "Is the game cool enough? Innovative? Can we make this loop more engaging? Hang on, let's push the deadline back again - we could improve the combat system... and so on," Origami wrote.
The reason the unfinished game survived so long was because it had "unwavering" support from Ubisoft. "It was impossible for it to be cancelled," Origami added. "To the point where it became something of a poison, according to several people within the company. If the project is never cancelled, could it also never be finished?"
But wide-ranging restructuring at Ubisoft, which most recently caused the closure of Trials developer RedLynx and the downsizing of the Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced team in Ubisoft Singapore - and reportedly layoffs at Germany offices too - has pulled that rug of invincibility from under the project. "They are now being told, rather more matter-of-factly: 'We don't know what's going to happen.'" One source said this was a "return to a sense of reality".
Beyond Good and Evil 2 holds the record for the video game longest in development, having surpassed Duke Nukem Forever's 14-year record in 2022. The game came closest to being realised, seemingly, in around 2018, when Ubisoft showed Beyond Good and Evil 2 to press - including Eurogamer - behind closed doors at E3, and promised a playable beta towards the end of 2019. But that never materialised. More recently, the game got a new creative director, and job adverts for the project have been sporadically appearing, including one spotted the other day.
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