Somehow, Beyond Good and Evil 2 continues to survive wave after wave of turmoil at Ubisoft. First announced way back in 2008, the game's been in various stages of development ever since, and fans have now been waiting 18 years to see it take shape. You might think that, surely, this project would've been one of the casualties of Ubisoft's massive restructure. But no – the publisher insists that the game is still in the works.
When it broke down the restructure earlier this week, Ubisoft listed Beyond Good and Evil as one of the franchises belonging to what it calls Creative House 4. That wasn't quite confirmation that the sequel is still in development, however. And while the list of six canceled games – the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, four unannounced titles, and a mobile game – couldn't have included BG&E2, it still felt impossible to hope that it would've survived all this.
But yesterday, Ubisoft made it explicit. "Beyond Good & Evil will be part of Creative House 4, dedicated to immersive fantasy worlds and narrative-driven universes," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku. "Beyond Good & Evil 2 remains a priority for us in the context of our strategy centered around Open World Adventures."
Congratulations to Beyond Good and Evil fans, I guess? But this ultimately just means the pain of waiting for a sequel just continues to stretch on. Ubisoft first debuted a teaser trailer for a Beyond Good and Evil follow-up way back in 2008, but it wasn't until 2017 that the game we now know as Beyond Good and Evil 2 was properly unveiled. But it wouldn't be long until the game went back underground, with Ubisoft spending the past half-decade sporadically claiming that it's still in the works.
If Beyond Good and Evil 2 is indeed still happening, I'm starting to wonder why. Don't get met wrong – the original game developed its cult classic status for a reason, and the wildly ambitious open-world game Ubisoft detailed in 2017 still sounds mesmerizing.
But the original Beyond Good and Evil is most of all remembered for how many people didn't play it. Why has Ubisoft decided to see this project through after canning so many others? Certainly, the last game that escaped from development hell at the company didn't exactly pan out in the end. Despite Ubisoft's assurances, I only get more worried every time the company says Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still on the way.
