{"id":4590,"date":"2022-08-04T23:14:15","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T23:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/04\/15-years-into-development-beyond-good-and-evil-2-gets-a-new-lead-writer\/"},"modified":"2022-08-04T23:14:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T23:14:15","slug":"15-years-into-development-beyond-good-and-evil-2-gets-a-new-lead-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/04\/15-years-into-development-beyond-good-and-evil-2-gets-a-new-lead-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"15 years into development, Beyond Good and Evil 2 gets a new lead writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many reasons, we included Beyond Good and Evil 2 in our list of ten games we can’t believe are still technically in development<\/a>. In fact, we led with it: That piggy in the picture at the top of the list is Pey’j, the mentor and adoptive uncle of lead character Jade.<\/p>\n

There’s a good reason for that choice. Beyond Good and Evil 2 was announced in 2008 and we’ve been doing “it’s still happening” posts since at least 2014<\/a>, yet all these years later it’s still just a title and a bit of concept art: Ubisoft won’t even commit to maybe\u2014maybe!<\/em>\u2014having it out in 2024<\/a>. Yet faint signs of life persist, most recently in the form of a new lead writer: Sarah Arellano, who announced the new gig on Twitter.<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s my turn to do the thing pic.twitter.com\/gS87kZn7UTAugust 3, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
See more<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Prior to the move to Ubisoft, Arellano was the narrative designer on Super Evil Megacorp’s 2015 MOBA Vainglory<\/a>. Her LinkedIn<\/a> account indicates that she also served as a writer at Deep Silver Volition (her Twitter account says she worked on the Saints Row reboot), and as a narrative designer on World of Warcraft at Blizzard. That’s a pretty impressive run.<\/p>\n

“We are very happy to welcome Sarah who is one of the latest recruits on Beyond Good and Evil 2,” a Ubisoft spokesperson said in an email sent to PC Gamer. “The development team is hard at work to deliver on the promise made to its community.”<\/p>\n

As for what it means for Beyond Good and Evil 2, that’s anyone’s guess at this point. The hiring of a new lead writer is the closest thing to a real sign of life we’ve seen in years (and the Ubisoft rep noted that the company is hiring for other positions at its Montpellier studio<\/a>, which is working on the game), but it’s also easy to view it as a sign that the whole thing is mired and may well be starting over. That’s obviously not a great place to be after 15 years of supposed work.<\/p>\n

At the same time, well, does it really matter? Even if development is being completely rebooted, what’s the loss? Beyond Good and Evil 2 barely exists as a concept in the public consciousness, much less an actual game in development, and it’s not as if there was a realistic expectation of a release sometime within the next couple of years\u2014or, quite frankly, even beyond that.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[#item_image]15 years into development, Beyond Good and Evil 2 gets a new lead writer<\/p>\n

For many reasons, we included Beyond Good and Evil 2 in our list of ten games we can’t believe are still technically in development<\/a>. In fact, we led with it: That piggy in the picture at the top of the list is Pey’j, the mentor and adoptive uncle of lead character Jade.<\/p>\n

There’s a good reason for that choice. Beyond Good and Evil 2 was announced in 2008 and we’ve been doing “it’s still happening” posts since at least 2014<\/a>, yet all these years later it’s still just a title and a bit of concept art: Ubisoft won’t even commit to maybe\u2014maybe!<\/em>\u2014having it out in 2024<\/a>. Yet faint signs of life persist, most recently in the form of a new lead writer: Sarah Arellano, who announced the new gig on Twitter.<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s my turn to do the thing pic.twitter.com\/gS87kZn7UTAugust 3, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
See more<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Prior to the move to Ubisoft, Arellano was the narrative designer on Super Evil Megacorp’s 2015 MOBA Vainglory<\/a>. Her LinkedIn<\/a> account indicates that she also served as a writer at Deep Silver Volition (her Twitter account says she worked on the Saints Row reboot), and as a narrative designer on World of Warcraft at Blizzard. That’s a pretty impressive run.<\/p>\n

“We are very happy to welcome Sarah who is one of the latest recruits on Beyond Good and Evil 2,” a Ubisoft spokesperson said in an email sent to PC Gamer. “The development team is hard at work to deliver on the promise made to its community.”<\/p>\n

As for what it means for Beyond Good and Evil 2, that’s anyone’s guess at this point. The hiring of a new lead writer is the closest thing to a real sign of life we’ve seen in years (and the Ubisoft rep noted that the company is hiring for other positions at its Montpellier studio<\/a>, which is working on the game), but it’s also easy to view it as a sign that the whole thing is mired and may well be starting over. That’s obviously not a great place to be after 15 years of supposed work.<\/p>\n

At the same time, well, does it really matter? Even if development is being completely rebooted, what’s the loss? Beyond Good and Evil 2 barely exists as a concept in the public consciousness, much less an actual game in development, and it’s not as if there was a realistic expectation of a release sometime within the next couple of years\u2014or, quite frankly, even beyond that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}