One of video games’ most beloved designers is stepping away from the industry. Ubisoft‘s Michel Ancel, creator of the Rayman series and Beyond Good & Evil, has decided to retire from video games to spend more time working at an animal shelter. Ancel announced the news via his own Instagram account.
This is an amazing opportunity for Ancel and one we all respect him for. The video game industry can be an incredibly tough, thankless place to work in. We’ve all heard stories about the time crunches, low pay, and abusive, sexual allegations. Over the years, several allegations have been directed toward current and former Ubisoft executives and employees.
Nonetheless, Ancel is walking away from it and starting a new chapter in his life. We wish him and the animal shelter he’s working at all the best and thank him for his amazing work.
As for Beyond Good & Evil 2, Senior Producer Guillaume Brunier issued a statement in an Ubisoft article commiserating with Ancel that, despite starting work on it in 2017, the legendary designer hadn’t been working on the project in some time.
As Michel noted, he hasn’t been directly involved in BG&E2 for some time now, as the team have been hard at work building on top of the solid creative foundation he helped shape. The team’s collective strength has us well on our way to developing a flagship next-generation action-adventure game. We recently passed an important internal milestone, delivering a build that proves our Space Pirate Fantasy and offers hours of gameplay and an incredible level of freedom in a seamless online sandbox, building upon the promise of our tech demos shown at E3. I’m incredibly proud of the team’s perseverance, dedication to each other and ongoing commitment to developing an amazing game.
Brunier said that they plan to deliver another update on the highly-anticipated sequel in 2021. However, from his words it seems as if we’re still a good ways away from getting our hands on the ambitious Ubisoft title. When more news on Beyond Good & Evil 2 is released, we’ll have it here.
