Beyond Good and Evil 2 Director Michel Ancel Retires From Gaming

Beyond Good and Evil 2’s director, Michel Ancel, has announced his retirement from gaming, officially stepping away from the long-awaited sequel.

In a post to Instagram made on Sept. 18, Ancel revealed that he was no longer tied to the game’s development and wouldn’t be looking to lead the creation of another title. Instead, he would be stepping back to focus on personal ventures, not least of which being to open up a wildlife sanctuary.

“Many of you might want to know what will happen to Wild and BGE2,” Ancel wrote in the Instagram post. “No worries, since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well. Beautiful things to be seen soon.”

Guillaume Brunier, Beyond Good and Evil 2’s senior producer, confirmed the news in a post to Ubisoft’s official website shortly after. He likewise confirmed that production on the game had continued on without Ancel for sometime now, and that the team was hard at work preparing a build of the game they could show to fans sometime next year, and that they were aiming to create a flagship next-generation action adventure game.

“We know many of you are eager to hear more from the team, get more detail on the story and universe, and try out the gameplay,” he wrote. “We’re equally excited to share all of that with you, but we will take the time needed to get it right. We want to go beyond the high expectations you have of us, and that we have for ourselves.”

Beyond Good and Evil 2 is currently slated for release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. For more on the game, check out some concept art of the characters, settings and more released late last year, as well as some videos detailing the game’s creation process.