After years of speculation and guesswork, it has been confirmed that Michel Ancel and Ubisoft are at work on a sequel to the cult hit Beyond Good and Evil.
Revealed on the official Beyond Good and Evil Facebook page, the post was accompanied by an image of a rugged-looking man in weather-worn clothing with a young pig hanging onto his shoulders.
The image comes from developer Ancel’s Instagram page, where he has been sharing concept art of creatures and characters that bear strong resemblances to those from the original game.
Not much is known about the game as of now, with little more than the announcement and the concept art to go off.
The image attached to the announcement features a young pig, which has led some to speculate that the new game is in fact a prequel about the life of Pey’j, a pig-like humanoid companion of the main character Jade from the original game.
In contrast to this, Ancel has said in earlier interviews that the game will be a direct continuation of the original game’s story; though, how this is to be presented was left deliberately unclear.
Beyond Good and Evil was released in 2003 to great critical acclaim. It proved to be a commercial failure, though, and production on a possible follow-up has been plagued with setbacks.
But there’s finally reason to celebrate. The game is in full production, though no window of release was given, nor was there any notion of what systems on which the game will be playable.
Ubisoft has recently fended off hostile takeover attempts by mass-media conglomerate Vivendi, and it would seem Ancel is standing by his publisher in the fight. That’s evident by the caption for one of the concept images he posted for his new game.
While it isn’t guaranteed production on the game would cease if the takeover was successful, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said it would be a “disaster” for the company, according to a report by IGN.com’s Joe Skrebels.
Hopefully for fans everywhere, Ubisoft can steer clear of the storm, and Beyond Good and Evil 2 can finally see the light of day.
