Past Good & Evil 2 artistic director Fawzi Mesmar has responded to Ubisoft’s sweeping firm reshuffle that resulted within the cancellation or delay of a swathe of recreation tasks, in addition to studio closures and layoffs — together with an extra 200 job losses proposed on the firm’s Paris headquarters this week.
Writing on LinkedIn, former DICE veteran Mesmar assured followers of Ubisoft’s long-in-development Past Good & Evil 2 that the undertaking had not been impacted within the restructure, as had beforehand been anticipated. Nonetheless, the developer mentioned he was “saddened” by the reorganization’s results on his colleagues throughout the broader firm.
With an on-again, off-again improvement stretching again nearly 20 years, Past Good & Evil 2 stays an ongoing undertaking inside Ubisoft, led by its French group primarily based in Montpellier.
“Thanks for everybody who has reached out to me over the previous few days with reference to latest information at Ubisoft,” Mesmar wrote. “Myself, my group and our undertaking Past Good and Evil 2 are unaffected by the latest modifications. I might direct you to the official press launch for extra data across the newest organisational construction.”
This press launch was the one which laid out Ubisoft management’s imaginative and prescient for the corporate to be cut up into 5 “Inventive Homes” that lump the writer’s many franchises into teams loosely primarily based round their style and viewers.
Final week, Past Good & Evil was introduced as being a part of Inventive Home 4, a gaggle devoted to narrative pushed and fantasy-orientated sequence that additionally consists of Anno, May & Magic, Rayman and Prince of Persia (although not the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake, which was canned).
“Evidently, I’m saddened by the cancellations that has affected my colleagues in different components of Ubisoft and the business,” Mesmar continued. “I urge everybody — myself included — to supply help each time and nevertheless they will throughout these instances.
“We stay dedicated and centered on delivering a outstanding recreation for our gamers to take pleasure in,” he concluded.
Past Good & Evil 2 initially begun early improvement in 2007, with sequence creator and Rayman mastermind Michel Ancel on board alongside the vast majority of the Montpellier group behind the primary Past Good & Evil recreation. Growth was placed on the again burner whereas Ancel’s group labored on different tasks, however Ubisoft re-announced the sport with fanfare in 2017 and confirmed off an in-engine idea that includes house flight and designs to function a number of photo voltaic techniques and planets.
Once more, nevertheless, improvement struggled — and the undertaking was additional impacted by Ancel’s departure from Ubisoft and the unhappy dying of its subsequent artistic lead Emil Morel. However the final couple of years have seen work coalesce as soon as extra, with the sequel’s characters given intriguing cameos within the new Past Good & Evil twentieth Anniversary Version, and the hiring of Mesmar as artistic director to regular the ship. That mentioned, 20 years on from the unique, there stays no phrase on when its follow-up will launch.
Earlier this week, an actress believed to have been engaged on the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake mentioned that she had misplaced three years’ value of labor and found her undertaking had been canceled after her brother examine Ubisoft’s shock determination on-line.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You possibly can attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
