Now crowned with the longest development time record in the history of video games, ahead of Duke Nukem Forever, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still rocked by new starts at Ubisoft Montpellier, whose CEO Guillaume Carmona set sail just over three years into his tenure. An unexplained departure that comes as the studio is currently being reviewed by a third party due to an unusual number of overworked developers, according to information from Kotaku.
Overwhelming fact, Beyond Good and Evil 2 has still not come out of its pre-production phase due to a creative vision that has still not found its formula, even two and a half years after the departure of the highly contested Michel Ancel. “The health and well-being of our teams is a constant priority. Given the length of Beyond Good and Evil 2’s development cycle, the Montpellier development team is subject to third-party wellness assessments as a preventative measure and to assess the possible need for additional support“, Ubisoft commented in an email in response to the Kotaku reporter.
Men change, the project remains
It must be said that 2022 would have seen Ubisoft Montpellier be the subject of an unusual number of extended leaves due to stress or sick leave, a phenomenon also affecting team leaders. Some have also returned to work while others have preferred to leave the studio. A situation apparently scrutinized by the labor inspectorate who made a visit last December and commissioned a third party entity to question the employees of Montpellier and then to provide a complete report on the health and well-being of the teams. The labor inspectorate declined to comment for reasons of confidentiality.
On the sidelines of the departure of Guillaume Carmona, Kotaku reveals that the development team of Beyond Good and Evil 2 has recently been shaken even in its highest direction. His LinkedIn account lets nothing appear, but the creative director Jean-Marc Geffroy, in office since March 2017, would no longer be part of the project and would have been replaced by Emile Morel, previously assistant director and in post at Ubisoft since 2009. During this time, Charles Gaudron (former of Watch Dogs and in charge until now of the design of the systems of Beyond Good and Evil 2) would have taken the post of director to replace Benjamin Durmaz, left to join the studio Build A Rocket Boy last January. Finally, for the road, some are betting on a replacement of executive producer Guillaume Brunier.