Beyond Good and Evil 2 has had to endure one of the most unstable and poorly managed development cycles for game in recent (or otherwise) memory, having been hit with everything from near-countless delays and development reboots to management shake-ups and more. Now, in an interview with French outlet Superpouvoir, former Ubisoft veteran Michel Ancel – the creator of Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil, who left Ubisoft in 2020 – has offered further insight into the issue the troubled sequel ran into behind-the-scenes.
Unsurprisingly, Ancel points to management issues, explaining that creative leads on the project were pulling in different directions, as a result of which progress was rarely made. Interestingly, reports published by French outlet Libé claimed Ancel’s problematic management had been one of the issues faced by the project, something that he says he was surprised to read about.
“On some projects, we set ourselves huge challenges and take on teams with passion, but without knowing how long and complex the road ahead will be,” Ancel said (translation via DeepL). “Passion is a fabulous energy, but it can also lead to clashes between enthusiasts. On BGE2, for example, there were too many problems between managers. The art director wanted to redo everything over and over again, the game director wanted to make a generated dungeon game and I was dreaming of a space adventure. We simply couldn’t agree, and the game director took the project in other directions.
“In this type of situation, the teams are thrown around and don’t even know who’s in charge and who’s making the decisions. The producer is supposed to bring order to the situation, but that hasn’t happened. [Ubisoft CEO] Yves Guillemot even had to go down to Montpellier to get things back on track, but that wasn’t enough and the game director continued in his obstinacy. When I read in Libé that I was the one running the game and asking for changes, I thought I was going to choke. BGE2 is the one game where I don’t think I’ve ever questioned a decision. I’d be delighted to discuss this with any detractors.”
Ancel went on to suggest that Ubisoft eventually rebooted the project with new leadership, before continuing that management issues were obviously bad for the dev team’s morale, and talking about his own role in the same.
“In the end, it’s all a case of passionate managers who didn’t get along,” he said. “I believe that some time ago, these people were dismissed and the project found a certain balance with new managers. These management problems are of course very damaging for the teams. All this goes to show that it’s not an easy job: lots of egos and lots at stake, with clearly room for improvement in terms of human management.
“There’s a huge difference between developing a BGE2 requiring new technology and a project with known tech and gameplay. I think that for a long time, the complexity of such a project was beyond many people at Ubisoft… and also in the press, which didn’t hesitate to make shortcuts to sell papers at the time of the Paris affairs.
“There wasn’t just one big villain, but a whole series of key issues that remained unresolved at management level, including myself. I have my share of responsibility and I should have defended the project better, been more present and more conciliatory with the staff.”
As recently as earlier this year, Ubisoft reassured that Beyond Good and Evil 2 was still in development, though further details on the project are scarce.