What exactly is going on with Beyond Good and Evil 2? We got a burst of news and early footage back in December of 2018, and Ubisoft has said a beta is slated for sometime in 2019, but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of game in months. Well, in a recent IGN Unfiltered interview, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot provided a brief, yet somewhat telling, update on Beyond Good and Evil 2…
“I spoke with Michel [Ancel] last week about it to see where it was going — how we should move in one or another direction. We see the potential of this universe is fantastic, and Michel is really passionate [about it]. It’s going to be fantastic I think.”
While Guillemot’s comments are a touch vague, it doesn’t sound like there’s a solid vision for Beyond Good and Evil 2 yet, and that Michel Ancel and his team are still mostly working on pre-production and world-building. For those that haven’t been keeping up, Ubisoft has broadly promised BGE2 will be an online co-op game, which casts players as space pirates having adventures across an open-world solar system containing several unique planets. The following features were also announced back in December…
Augments: You play as a customizable space pirate captain, who carries a sword, gun, and jetpack as basic equipment. Your characters and weapons can also be enhanced with augments, which grant special abilities and let you experiment with different effects in combat, trapping your foes in a time-slowing bubble or freezing them in place with chained electricity.
Spyglass: In order to see what your enemies have equipped, you’ll need your Spyglass, which displays the stats, skills, and augments of other characters, as well as revealing more details about locations and points of interest — even from space!
Co-op: Beyond Good and Evil 2 is an online game, and while you can play solo, co-op buddies can jump in or out at any time. You won’t be tethered together, and if you want to wander off and explore while another player does their own thing, you’re free to do so.
Vehicles: You’ll have access to a wide variety of flying vehicles. Any vehicle you see can be commandeered and driven, and they can all tune into Radio Cheetah, a station by space pirates, for space pirates. You’ll also be able to fully customize your rides.
Needless to say, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is an extremely ambitious project, and that 2019 beta seems kind of unlikely at this point. Hopefully the game’s dev team can settle on a solid direction sometime soon and not too many compromises have to be made.
Ubisoft has yet to announce a launch date or platforms for Beyond Good and Evil 2.
