In June, on the eve of the release of Beyond Good & Evil – 20th Anniversary Editionpublisher Ubisoft made a surprising announcement: the sequel to that game, Outside Good and Evil 2was still in development, the company saidIt was the first official update to the sequel, which has been in the works for a whopping 17 years, since 2021.
To show that they were serious about finally delivering Outside Good and Evil 2 At one point, Ubisoft even included a new teaser for the sequel in its remaster of the original Beyond Good and Evil. A new treasure hunt in the anniversary edition “reveals more about the narrative link to Outside Good and Evil 2“demonstrating Ubisoft’s continued commitment to the franchise,” the company said.
That narrative link was quickly discovered by players. It shows a holographic message to protagonist Jade from Dakini, Jade’s mother figure and the captain of the space pirate ship Gada. In addition to the heartfelt recording, Dakini presents Jade with a number of artifacts tied to characters who will appear in Outside Good and Evil 2 — a prequel to the original game.
The collectibles include Dakini’s compass, Knox the chimpanzee pirate’s knife, Gada engineer Callum’s chess piece, pilot Yaashan’s glasses, and Chief Doctor Uma’s dreamcatcher. These characters — all of which were featured in Outside Good and Evil 2‘s 2018 film trailer — are given added color in a series of multimedia CDs that Jade can collect in the 20th anniversary release.
This new content seems to confirm that Ubisoft plans to stick with the previously revealed cast and setting of Outside Good and Evil 2which has had a series of ups and downs during its absurdly long development timeline. Or the version of Outside Good and Evil 2 What ultimately comes out will be the massive open-world, single-player, co-op shared universe previously promised – or something more modest – remains to be seen.
But to remind you how we got here and what Ubisoft said about Outside Good and Evil 2 Read on for a brief history of the game’s development over the past fifteen years.
Outside Good and Evil 2 was first announced in 2007, when then-game director Michel Ancel announced a sequel on the pages of Nintendo Power“I’m currently working on a game that means a lot to me,” Ancel said, “where the core is immersion and a sense of incredible journey.”
A year later, Ancel himself would announce the project outright, telling the French publication GamesVideo“I have been working on Beyond Good & Evil 2. We’ve been in pre-production for a year. (…) But for now it’s still in the design phase. Ubisoft hasn’t given the go-ahead yet.”
Ubisoft has the first official look at Outside Good and Evil 2 at the Ubidays ’08 event, which announced the return of characters Jade and Pey’j, but did not directly market the game as a sequel to Beyond Good and EvilThe trailer was described by Ubisoft as representative of the graphical fidelity of the then-current generation of consoles: PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
A year after the sequel was officially revealed, there would be a leaked gameplay trailer was published online by various media outlets. Ubisoft denied that it intentionally leaked the footage, which showed a character — apparently Jade — running through city streets and escaping her pursuers by hijacking a delivery helicopter. Ancel confirmed the authenticity of the leaked gameplay in an interview with Geoff Keighleyin what appeared to be an ongoing discussion between the game director and his publisher over how to promote the game Outside Good and Evil 2.
The fate of the next ten years will depend on Outside Good and Evil 2 was unclear. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and Ancel said in multiple interviews that the game was still in development, but that other projects (Rayman Legends, Wild) had slowed or interrupted progress. Ubisoft president Laurent Detoc seemed more skeptical about BG&E2‘s fate, telling Industry Gamers in 2009: “Whether it will ever happen remains to be seen.”
Outside Good and Evil 2 resurfaced in 2016, when Ancel posted concept art for the game Instagramwhich hinted at the prequel setting and said the game was still in ‘pre-production’. Ubisoft later specified in a Facebook post that BG&E2 was “in development.”
At E3 2017, Ubisoft once again revealed Outside Good and Evil 2 with a new cinematic trailer that introduced much of the game’s space pirate cast. Ancel and Ubisoft confirmed that the game was a prequel and that players would take on the role of a character of their own creation. They would not be playing as Jade again. Ancel also confirmed that Previous versions of the game shown nearly a decade earlier were from a narrative sequeland that the game had changed significantly over the past decade.
Ancel also showed off a 14-minute gameplay demo of BG&E2 that year, which he described as “a mix between a technology demonstration of the engine we call Voyager, and the actual game with some gameplay elements.”
The game was released in 2017 and also introduced Ubisoft’s Space Monkey Program, an initiative pitched as a way for Beyond Good & Evil fans to “create art and music that will be directly integrated into the game.”
“The BGE community has created incredible fan art, fan fiction, cosplay, music, and videos over the years, so we’ve been thinking about ways to be more inclusive of all community members,” Ubisoft’s description of the program reads. “Our partnership with HitRecord allows the community to participate even more directly in the making of our game.”
HitRecord is the company and website of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which serves as a “collaborative hub for a community full of people who enjoy making all kinds of art together.” according to Gordon-LevittThe involvement of the Space Monkey Program and HitRecord immediately led to a backlash, as it appeared that Ubisoft was asking its fans to provide unpaid and special work to the creation of Outside Good and Evil 2with the sole promise of “special events and demos, and being among the first to play the game.”
In 2018, Ubisoft released a second cinematic trailer focusing on the Gada space pirate crew and announcing the return of a younger Jade.
After this, Ubisoft and Ancel went quiet again about the game’s development. In September 2020, Ancel announced on Instagram he had left Ubisoft completely, but that “(for) months the (Outside Good and Evil 2 And Wild) teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well.” The following month, Ancel said he had not worked directly with the Ubisoft Montpellier team for almost two years, saying he had only worked on the game in an advisory role. The update was in response to a report in the French newspaper Liberation who claimed that working conditions in the game were poor and that Ancel was acting in a chaotic manner.
In 2021, Ubisoft offered a cursory update on the sequel, saying in a financial statement that Outside Good and Evil 2 development was going “well”. But in 2023, the game suffered a terrible blow; the creative director, Emile Morel, died suddenly at the age of 40. Beyond Good & Evil – 20th Anniversary Edition includes a small tribute to Morel: a bouquet of flowers and a card for the experienced game designer.
The coming out of Beyond Good & Evil – 20th Anniversary Edition and the fresh narrative ties to the (now) prequel are the strongest commitment we’ve seen from Ubisoft in years that fans will eventually get a new game in the franchise. Outside of Jade and Pey’j’s cameo appearances in the animated series Captain Laserhawkit’s the only sign of life from Ubisoft regarding obtaining BG&E2 across the finish line. But given the publisher’s loyal dedication to games like For Honor, Rainbow Six Siegeand the languishing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, there is reason to believe that Outside Good and Evil 2 will finally get here. Someday.