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"Needless to say, I am saddened by the cancellations that [have] affected my colleagues"
Ubisoft recently unleashed a raft of cancellations, delays and studio closures as part of a brutal bout of corporate restructuring. We've still yet to see how all of the repercussions of it will go, with proposed voluntary redundancies at the company's Paris headquarters having seen unions put plans in place for a three day strike in February.
One of the games which wasn't among the cancellations was long-in-development sequel Beyond Good and Evil 2, and its director has now confirmed as much, offering a brief message to reassure fans and encourage folks to support devs affected by Ubisoft's bloodletting.
"Thank you for everyone who has reached out to me over the past few days in regards to recent news at Ubisoft," Fawzi Mesmar wrote on LinkedIn. "Myself, my team and our project Beyond Good and Evil 2 are unaffected by the recent changes.
"Needless to say, I am saddened by the cancellations that has affected my colleagues in other parts of Ubisoft and the industry. I urge everyone - myself included - to offer support whenever and however they can during these times. We remain committed and focused on delivering a remarkable game for our players to enjoy."
He also directed folks to consult the official docs for more info on Ubisoft's restructure, which has seen the Beyond Good and Evil series slotted into the fourth of five "creative houses". House number four is all about "immersive fantasy worlds and narrative-driven universes", with Anno, Might & Magic, Rayman, and Prince of Persia filling it out.
It's great to hear Mesmar's team haven't been hit by layoffs as a result of changes, at least as of yet, though it is worth noting that we don't know the exact number of folks who're working on Beyond Good and Evil 2 at the moment. As Edwin wrote the other week, the official reason that's been given for BG&E2 keeping on keeping on while the likes of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake were condemned to history is Ubisoft's desire to keep doing open world things.
My non-money expert also speculated that there might be boring accounting reasons why the company might want to keep this specific game in the works for now, essentially boiling down to it being more useful to them alive and with potential to make some money in the eyes of investors, rather than written off as a cash black hole.
The truth, as it's been for a while, is that none of the above will become truly crystal clear until finally we get more details about/a chance to play Beyond Good and Evil 2, or Ubisoft announce they're pulling the plug. For now, it remains Schrödinger's anthropomorphic animal action-adventure.
English (US) ·