Key Takeaways:
- Beyond Good and Evil 2 is reportedly still in pre-production — not yet in full production — 18 years after its first announcement in 2008.
- The game has shifted dramatically from a multiplayer-first “third place” live service concept to a solo-first story-driven game with optional co-op.
- At least 250 people at Ubisoft Montpellier alone are currently working on the project in pre-production.
- The game is aiming to move into the alpha phase, according to sources close to development.
- Combat is now described as reminiscent of Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, replacing an earlier Zelda-in-space comparison.
- The game repeatedly missed internal creative milestones (“gates”) due to constant concept shifts throughout development.
- BGE2 previously had “unwavering” internal protection from cancellation — but Ubisoft’s ongoing restructuring has stripped that safety net away.
- Sources describe the current situation as a “return to a sense of reality” — the project’s future is now genuinely uncertain for the first time.
You know how people say some things have been “in development hell”? Beyond Good and Evil 2 is the dictionary definition. Eighteen years. That’s two console generations. That’s long enough for the kids who played the original to grow up, have kids of their own, and have those kids grow up wondering if this sequel will ever exist. And the latest report on the game’s status is simultaneously the most informative we’ve had in years and possibly the most ominous.
Still in Pre-Production. Not Full Production. Pre-Production.
Let’s start with the bluntest fact in this whole situation. According to a detailed French-language report from Origami Media, citing multiple sources close to the development, Beyond Good and Evil 2 has not yet entered full production. It’s in pre-production. Using standard industry terminology from Ubisoft and most major game companies, the “production” phase — when the full team is building the actual game — hasn’t even started yet.
This is 2026. The game was first announced at UbiDays 2008. That’s eighteen years of a project sitting in development without having entered the formal production phase that actually results in a shippable game. The sheer scale of that fact is hard to fully absorb.
What makes it even more staggering is that this isn’t a skeleton crew keeping the lights on. At Ubisoft Montpellier alone, there are reportedly at least 250 people currently working on the game in pre-production. And according to sources, the project is now pushing toward entering the alpha phase — which would be a significant milestone if it actually happens.
From Destiny Clone to Solo-First Story Game — The Full Evolution
What’s fascinating about Origami Media’s report is that it traces the concept journey BGE2 has been on, and it’s been a wild ride. Between roughly 2019 and 2022, the vision for the game was apparently far removed from what a fan of the original might have expected. The plan was for something “highly multiplayer and connected” — featuring a huge number of planets where players would be matchmade together, inspired heavily by Fortnite and Destiny as reference points.
The concept was built around what developers called a “third place” — a social hub where you’d hang out with friends after work, much like those live service games. Players would have created blank characters who essentially tagged along with the actual heroes of Beyond Good and Evil as observers rather than protagonists. If that sounds a long way from what made the original game special, it’s because it was.
From there, the vision kept shifting. Large matchmade groups became more open-ended multiplayer, which became team-based play for groups of four, which then became pairs. And now, according to current sources, the game has landed on what it is today: a solo-first adventure, with no mandatory online connection required, built around a strong narrative, with optional co-op available for those who want it.
The vibe comparison has shifted just as dramatically. A few years ago, sources within development were likening it to “Zelda in space.” Now, the description is something closer to Insomniac’s Spider-Man games in terms of combat feel. That’s an enormous creative swing across nearly two decades.
Why It Kept Missing Its Milestones
The reason BGE2 has burned through eighteen years without completing pre-production comes down to a pattern that Origami Media’s sources describe with painful clarity. The game has repeatedly failed to meet internal creative milestones — referred to internally as “gates” — because the concept kept changing before it could ever be solidified.
“Is the game cool enough? Innovative? Can we make this loop more engaging? Hang on, let’s push the deadline back again — we could improve the combat system… and so on,” Origami wrote, summarising the cycle as sources described it.
Each time the game came close to locking down a vision and moving forward, someone questioned whether it was innovative enough or engaging enough, and the scope shifted again. It’s a creative trap that’s well-documented in game development — when a project has unlimited runway and no hard deadline forcing decisions, the temptation to keep refining the concept rather than committing to it can become a death spiral. Not of cancellation, but of permanent, indefinite delay.
BGE2 fell into that exact trap, and it fell hard.
The Poison of Invincibility
Here’s the part of Origami Media’s report that cuts deepest. For years, BGE2 survived because it had what sources described as “unwavering” support from within Ubisoft — support so ironclad that “it was impossible for it to be cancelled.” The game became untouchable.
But that protection came with a dark side. As one source put it: “If the project is never cancelled, could it also never be finished?” Without the threat of cancellation forcing real decisions and real deadlines, the game became something of an open-ended creative experiment that people could keep adjusting forever without consequences. It became, in the words of sources speaking to Origami, “something of a poison” within the company.
A game that can never die and can never finish is a game that costs an enormous amount of money and delivers nothing to players or to the studio’s bottom line. For years, Ubisoft’s size and success made that sustainable. Recent years have made it much less so.
Ubisoft’s Restructuring Has Finally Changed the Calculus
The shielded status BGE2 once enjoyed is no longer guaranteed. Ubisoft has been going through wide-ranging restructuring that has already resulted in the closure of Trials developer RedLynx, the downsizing of the Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced team at Ubisoft Singapore, and reported layoffs at German offices. The company is in cost-cutting mode, and that changes the conversation around every project — including the previously untouchable one.
According to sources speaking to Origami Media, the team working on BGE2 has now been told, in blunt terms: “We don’t know what’s going to happen.” One source described this as a “return to a sense of reality” — which is either encouraging because reality might force the project to actually reach decisions and move forward, or alarming because reality might also mean cancellation.
This doesn’t mean BGE2 is definitely being cancelled. A writer from Ubisoft Bordeaux, Rik Godwin, confirmed as recently as September 2026 that he’d been working on the project in a support and consultant role — Ubisoft signed off on him making that public. The game was reportedly confirmed to have survived Ubisoft’s January 2026 round of layoffs that cancelled multiple other projects. And there are even unconfirmed rumours that it could appear at The Game Awards in December 2026.
But “survived so far” and “guaranteed to ship” are very different things. The removal of BGE2’s invincibility is the most significant shift in the project’s situation since it was first shown at E3 2017, and what happens next is genuinely unclear in a way it never has been before.
Eighteen Years Is Not a Number, It’s a Warning
Let’s put 2008 in context for a second. When Beyond Good and Evil 2 was first announced at UbiDays, the iPhone was one year old. The PS3 and Xbox 360 were the current generation. Grand Theft Auto IV hadn’t come out yet. Barack Obama hadn’t been elected yet. Minecraft didn’t exist yet.
A game announced in that world, featuring characters from a 2003 original, is still not in full production in 2026 — and its fate is now in the hands of a Ubisoft that is under genuine financial pressure and making hard calls about what it can and can’t afford to carry.
The fact that the game has reportedly evolved into something that sounds genuinely appealing — a narrative-driven solo adventure with optional co-op, Spider-Man-style combat, and the charm of the original BGE universe — is almost more frustrating than if it had stayed as the Destiny clone it was being shaped into. Because it suggests that somewhere in those 250 people at Ubisoft Montpellier, there might be a great game trying to get out. Whether it ever does remains the longest-running question in gaming.
For more on studios and games caught in brutal industry turbulence right now, check out our coverage of Valor Mortis breaking even in a week — a story about how good games still find their audience when studios make smart decisions. The Xbox office mandate news is also worth reading for more context on how gaming companies are rethinking how they operate right now.
