Michel Ancel Talks Beyond Good & Evil 2

Michel Ancel has opened up about the direction of his impending sequel to cult classic Beyond Good & Evil 2.

In an interview with IGN Ancel was asked why the game was now a next gen title despite it being first announced five years ago.

“I think we were doing something too big for this period. Honestly, it was too challenging to put that on [current] consoles. I don’t say the consoles were not good enough, I don’t say the team was not good enough, but you have to scale what you want to do and the console itself.

“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. Not just a sequel, but something that really makes all the ideas that we had for the first one possible now with these consoles.”

IGN, speaking to the legendary games designer in San Francisco at an event for upcoming platformer Rayman Legends, then asked about what the new consoles can offer to his vision for the game and whether the new game would just mean a bigger sequel.

“More than ‘bigger,’ it’s the freedom we want to give to the player. In this kind of game, while you’re investigating, you don’t want to investigate in a story that has been written by the developers. My feeling is that you want to investigate with your own way of investigating.

I like the freedom of choosing your vehicles, flying away with the spaceship and all those things. It was in Beyond Good & Evil 1 but it was not as much as we wanted. I like the fact that if you want to fly from one city to another, one planet to another, it’s something that you should be able to do. That freedom and the world of Beyond Good & Evil is very challenging to do.”

When asked when we’ll hear more on the project Ancel was coy. “I can’t tell you because if I promise something, oh no,” he said with a smile.