Renowned video game designer Michel Ancel has finally talked about what went wrong with Beyond Good & Evil 2 and WiLD.
Video game designer Michel Ancel is primarily known for his work on Rayman, Beyond Good & Evil, and Rabbids, although he also became infamous for two big failed projects attached to his name: Beyond Good & Evil 2 and WiLD.
Ancel retired from the games industry in September 2020, following allegations of toxic management. Since then, he’s been busy with something entirely different: an ecological project for the preservation of nature. However, French website Superpouvoir (which tipped us about the article) managed to score an interview with him to discuss the aforementioned unsuccessful game projects.
When it comes to Beyond Good & Evil 2, Michel Ancel cited issues with the other key figures in the studio at Ubisoft Montpellier. Apparently, they couldn’t agree on a singular vision for the game.
On BGE2, there were too many problems between managers. The artistic director wanted to redo everything constantly, the game director wanted to make a game of generated dungeons and I dreamed of a space adventure. We simply could not agree and the game director took the project in other directions.
In this type of situation, teams find themselves tossed around and don’t even know who’s in charge and making decisions. The producer is supposed to sort things out, but that didn’t happen. 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 stubbornness.
