Beyond Good & Evil 2's new creative director wants to make it "truly unique", but maybe just focus on finishing it

rockpapershotgun.com:

Ubisoft Montpellier's Beyond Good And Evil 2 has been delayed so much that it has transcended the label of "vapourware", while staunchly refusing to become "abandonware". Announced in 2008, it has now comfortably outstripped Duke Nukem Forever as the "triple-A" game with the longest development time. I'm sure there are a few indie passion projects that have been bubbling away in the shadows for longer, but nothing on this scale. What's less tangible than vapour? Ectoplasm? The promises of small children?

Ah, we josh, Ubisoft, but only because we care. The original Beyond Good And Evil was a magnificent open worlder with a sense of mystery and whimsy that hasn't quite been seen since. It had a photography element and a talking pig uncle who was an absolute liability in bossfights. I will pounce on any scrap of halfway-positive BG&E2 news I can find. For example, Beyond Good And Evil 2 has a new creative director, Fawzi Mesmar - Ubisoft's vice president of global creative and the former head of design at Battlefield developers DICE.

Mesmar's predecessor in the role was Emile Morel, a veteran Ubisoft designer and game director of Rayman Legends, who died suddenly in 2023 at the age of 40. Morel's sad passing is the latest in a long series of misfortunes for the project and its team. According to series creator and former game director Michel Ancel, Beyond Good And Evil 2's development has been on hold for significant chunks of the 16 years since it was announced. Ancel himself departed Ubisoft in September 2020, amid allegations of mismanagement; Ubisoft staff claimed at the time that he hadn't been involved with Beyond Good & Evil 2 for a while.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 seemed most concrete back in 2017, when Ubisoft finally showed off some footage at E3. The header art above dates back to that time. It looked very weird for a triple-A blockbuster production, and also powerfully unfocussed - a mouthy hybrid of Outer Wilds and Roblox, featuring Cockney monkeys -