Origami | 《超越善恶2》仍在（被认为）预制作中，育碧蒙彼利埃工作室至少250人投入，现为“单人优先”体验

Origami said:

What's the real status of Beyond Good & Evil 2? This question regularly stirs up the video game community. In late September, a simple Bluesky post by a narrative designer from Ubisoft Bordeaux—announcing that he had joined the game's team—was enough to spark a series of English-language articles on the subject. "Yes, BGE2 is still in development!" read one IGN headline, for example.

And… of course it's still in development! Because if it weren't, Ubisoft would be forced to warn its shareholders about a huge hole in its finances. That said, Beyond Good & Evil 2 has indeed become something of a white elephant in the modern gaming world. There has been no news about the project since its last presentation at E3 2017. Yet several hundred people are working on it—at Ubisoft Montpellier, but also (for a time) at Ubisoft Paris, in Germany at Ubisoft Mainz, and elsewhere. Some of these studios have, in fact, recently been affected by layoffs or plans to reduce their workforce.

Origami said:

So where exactly is the Beyond Good & Evil 2 project at? To get a clearer picture, we need to talk about the famous "gates." Roughly speaking, these are conceptual milestones (usually a delivery date, agreed upon—for example—a year in advance) that mark key stages in the game's development and determine whether Ubisoft's editorial leadership will allocate additional staff—and thus a larger budget. Often, this "gate" takes the form of a demo that's meant to showcase the project's potential.

And as it happens, Beyond Good & Evil 2 is approaching one of these milestones. It's far from being its first, and if things were to go wrong, it unfortunately wouldn't be the first time either. Some people even fear it might be the last one, due to the major restructuring currently rocking Ubisoft, but also for other reasons I'll discuss below. Historically, BGE2 has missed all of its creative milestones. That doesn't mean the project is stalling, that the teams working on it aren't up to par, or that Ubisoft's editorial team is unhappy with what's being presented to them. The problem is that the nature of this "milestone" keeps changing. Is the game cool enough? Is it innovative? Can we make this loop more engaging? Wait, let's push the deadline back again—we could improve the combat system… and so on.

Origami said:

BGE2 still has that mind-blowing technical foundation—the Voyager engine—which I've been told was, for a long time, far ahead of the rest of the industry. However, from a gameplay perspective, the project has shifted from smaller matchmade groups, then to more open-ended play, then to team-based gameplay for four players, and finally to two-player mode. Now, the goal is to offer a "solo-first" adventure, without a mandatory online connection and featuring strong story-driven content that's also playable in co-op. A few years ago, some people thought it had a "Zelda in space" vibe; today, its combat is very reminiscent of Insomniac's Spider-Man games.

Origami said:

In truth, it isn't the finish line that's been moving back all these years. It's the starting line. If we go by the terminology used at Ubisoft and many other major companies in the industry, production on BGE2 hasn't even begun yet. It's still in pre-production, which involves at least 250 people (at Ubisoft Montpellier alone). And this project is now aiming to move into alpha. The "gate" it's working toward is the transition to production—the moment when the game's framework is finalized and development finally shifts to adding playable content. For over ten years, BGE2 has been like a car stuck on an endless highway, unable to take an exit.

Origami said:

But the tone has changed. These days, when teams express concern about the outcome of the next gate—while Ubisoft is laying off employees across the board—they're now met with a more matter-of-fact response: "We don't know what's going to happen." According to one of my sources, these new apprehensions may be tinged with a touch of fantasy. Seeing BGE2 canceled would be a return to a sense of reality in a project that no longer seems connected to the real world. Of course, not everyone involved shares this view. Some have only just joined the project and are still motivated by the idea of seeing it through and getting off this damn highway. " "I don't think we'll ever pinpoint the root cause of BGE2's problems while the project is still active, whether it gets released or not," explained a source who has devoted six years of his professional life to Beyond Good & Evil 2. "It's going to require an absolutely colossal postmortem. In the meantime, we're moving forward, without being able to say what led us here."

More (FR): https://www.origami.ng/beyond-good-evil-2-peut-il-mourir/
Also, Gautoz (writer of the article) will cover his coverage 15 minute(-ish) from now on Twitch (FR):
View: https://www.twitch.tv/origatwitch