It has been a long-term concern by fans of the first game that Beyond Good and Evil 2 was no longer in the works. However, it was recently confirmed that it is, and now we’ve received news via LinkedIn that Fawzi Mesmar is joining the team as Creative Director. This was announced publicly on LinkedIn, with Mesmar announcing his new role at Ubisoft Montpellier, after previously working as Vice President of Editorial over at Ubisoft.
Emile Morel was the previous Creative Director for the title but unfortunately passed away suddenly last year. This led to Mesmar filling the role. This industry veteran has over 20 years of experience in the industry, working for companies such as DICE, King, and Gameloft. He additionally won an Ambassador Award at the 2024 Game Developer’s Choice Awards.
For many, this news comes as a shock, as Beyond Good and Evil 2 was first announced in 2008, with a trailer being released during Ubisoft’s 2017 E3 conference, and there has been very minimal information about the sequel since then. The original director Michel Ancel even left Ubisoft in 2020, and now works in a wildlife sanctuary instead. However, he is now consulting on a new Rayman project.
While there hasn’t been any news on Beyond Good and Evil 2, a 4K remake of the original was released earlier this year. However, this meant that the original version of the game was removed, and people were forced to buy the 20th Anniversary Edition.
With Beyond Good and Evil 2 still reportedly being in development, this now makes it the longest development time for a AAA game, with Duke Nukem Forever’s record being fifteen years. It’s said that development has taken so long due to toxic leadership, chaotic direction and constant gridlock when it came to making decisions about how the game was going to look, and what features would be in the game.
In addition to Fawzi Mesmar joining the team, Francide Coldeboeuf is now taking over as Producer on Beyond Good and Evil 2. Considering the struggles Ubisoft has been dealing with their other projects, such as Star Wars Outlaws and XDefiant not performing to their expectations, it’s quite a surprise that Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still in development all these years later.
However, the title has reportedly passed an internal milestone with positive feedback from the leadership, as reported by Kotaku. Whether that means that the game is actually progressing nicely is uncertain, and it’s anyone’s guess as to when the audience will finally see this game come to fruition.
