Beyond Good & Evil 2's creator suggests re-announcement could happen in the next year

And now it's time for our semi-regular feature: let's all close our eyes and hope really hard that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is going to happen some day, despite the lack of firm confirmation or evidence to suggest that it will. It worked for Mirror's Edge 2 dammit, it can work for this - and series creator Michael Ancel is only too happy to fuel our optimism. This time, he's suggesting the game could be re-announced in the next year.

"We've made a lot of things already. Now we need to put them together and make that game. If there would be any communication it will be in the next year, just trying to talk about the fact we are on it. But so many people in Ubisoft want to make that game, honestly.

"It was not the time when we worked on it before, it was too ambitious, honestly. And this is the game that we want to do at the right time. So now that we have the right team and the right tools, this would be a good time to do it."

To recap: Ancel still needs to build a team, retrieve elements, and says this would be a good time. If there is a reason to believe that this time really will be BG&E2's moment, it's that we're about to tick into a new round of consoles - giving what Ancel admits were over-ambitious plans the tech they need to be realised.

"In Beyond Good & Evil 1 at first it was a full planet, you could go to the North Pole and see the eternal day," he said. "But we had to limit it as we were only 35 people. We couldn't fill the whole world with all the things we wanted. We were frustrated at the end of BG&E1, and when we started the sequel we started again with this idea - you're free and can investigate and travel the world as much as you want."

On the otherside of this long-spinning coin, there's a potential roadblock: management. "They [the Ubisoft bosses] have done really well with the different games that are coming out right now and the ones they've already released," Ancel said. "They're in a good place in terms of the business, and it could be very interesting to make a game like that as there aren't too many games out there right now that would be like ours. So I think it's the right time and I'm confident that they will follow the team."

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Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.