Ubisoft continues to insist that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is real game that exists, despite the fact that it was announced more than 18 years ago and we haven't seen hide or hair of it this decade. A new report suggests that the reason it's taking so long is that the devs keep going back to the drawing board, most recently transitioning from a live-service Fortnite killer to a single-player first game.
That's according to French outlet Origami, which reports (via machine translation) that Beyond Good & Evil 2 was being developed as a "highly multiplayer and connected game" between 2019 and 2022, taking direct inspiration from Fortnite and Destiny. Players would create their own characters and take on activities that would be generated on the fly, with large group sessions that would be matchmade organically.
Over time, the plan shifted to something more "open-ended," to four-player team-based action and then to two-player co-op, the report continues. In its current form, Beyond Good & Evil 2 is apparently set to be a "solo-first" game with Marvel's Spider-Man-style combat and no mandatory internet requirements, but it still includes optional co-op.
But perhaps the most surprising detail in the report is that the game is apparently still in pre-production. This, the report claims, is part of a long-standing pattern in the project's development. Beyond Good & Evil 2 has apparently missed all of its internal creative milestones not because the devs are failing to make deadlines, but because the milestones themselves keep changing as the project continues to change shape. Never mind the finish line – the devs don't even really know what the starting line is meant to look like.
I can't help but think of what's now BioWare's final game amid all this. According to multiple reports, Dragon Age: The Veilguard bounced back and forth between being a live-service multiplayer title and a single-player RPG, and after years of development uncertainty it's no wonder the final product felt as uncertain and unfocused as it did.
Maybe Ubisoft's big restructure will be what Beyond Good & Evil 2 needs to finally see the light of day, since the new corporate organization is meant, in part, to offer a clearer creative vision for projects in development. But Skull & Bones offers the most recent example of Ubisoft finally pulling a game out of development hell and onto store shelves, and I think it's safe to say that's not the most thrilling precedent of success.
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