‘Beyond Good and Evil 2’ to be next-gen and beyond ‘bigger’

Ubisoft game director Michel Ancel recently spoke about the upcoming sequel to Beyond Good and Evil. The game will still follow the story of photographer-for-hire Jade but will focus more on elements such as emotion and enormity. Ancel has high hopes for the new title and plans for an open-world environment for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

While in the original Jade had a hovercraft and a spaceship to travel around the world and stuff, the sequel will take this element of freedom to the next level. When asked about the scale of his expectations for Beyond Good and Evil 2, Ancel says that he wants to take it beyond just “bigger.” Open world bigger.

In an interview with IGN, he says that like in the original title, the player enjoys the “freedom of choosing your vehicles, flying away with the spaceship and all those things.” That’s not enough for though. He wants to size it up to where “if you want to fly from one city to another, one planet to another, it’s something that you should be able to do.”

The news of a Beyond Good and Evil sequel came as long as five years ago when Ancel shared some deets with a French magazine. Jeux Video reports that the team wants Beyond Good and Evil 2 “to be in continuity with the first game, with a big variety of levels, lots of emotion in the gameplay, and characters we care about. This time we are dealing with planet Hillys’ future, and the relationship with animals.” That’s five years ago!

http://youtu.be/vkCXE1l5MVI

Luckily for us, the upcoming Xbox One and PS4 has sparked a new sense of intrigue, however. “I think now with those new consoles arriving, yes, we want to try again making that game. I would say it’s surprising, as we want it to be,” says Ancel.

Being very enthusiastic about the next-gen consoles, Ancel explains it’s time for the new title. He notes that when it comes to current-gen consoles, “you have to scale what you want to do and the console itself.”

When asked about the scale of his expectations for Beyond Good and Evil 2, he says that he wants to take it beyond just “bigger.” Is that a bit of a tall order, or a simple excuse as we’ve seen epic titles such as The Last of Us, Mass Effect and Bioshock Infinite taking advantage of current-gen. Not to mention upcoming Watch Dogs and GTAV.

Take a look at this concept video:

He says that like in the original title, the player enjoys the “freedom of choosing your vehicles, flying away with the spaceship and all those things.” That’s not enough for though. He wants to size it up to where “if you want to fly from one city to another, one planet to another, it’s something that you should be able to do.”

As you probably knew, there’s no word on a release date yet.