Beyond Good and Evil

Submission 5,688

About

Beyond Good and Evil is a character-action video game directed by Michael Ancel and published by Ubisoft in which players take the role of Jade, a freelance photographer on the planet Hillys who with the help of friends and an underground resistance force works to take down the planet's militaristic government known as The Alpha Sections by photographing examples of their corruption. Released in 2003, the game developed a cult following. A sequel to the first game had long been rumored until it was confirmed to be in pre-production thirteen years after the original.

History

Beyond Good and Evil was developed my Michael Ancel.^[1] It was originally conceived to be an artistic experience similar to games like Ico but negative initial reception led to drastic changes in an effort to make the game more commercially viable. The game was released on November 11th, 2003 (trailer shown below).

The game developed a cult following and was praised by critics, but did not sell well commercially. It was given an HD remaster and released in 2011 by Ubisoft Shanghai. The game featured improved character and environment textures as well as a trophy system (trailer shown below).

Sequel

A sequel to the game had long been rumored and hinted at, though news on the game was sparse for many years. In 2008, Ubisoft announced that there would be a second game. A cinematic featuring Jade and fellow lead character Pey'j was posted online that year (shown below).

[This video has been removed]

News about the sequel was scarce for the following eight years, until October of 2016, when Ubisoft confirmed that a follow-up was in pre-development. During E3 2017, they released the first trailer for the game, which was confirmed to be a prequel to the original (shown below, left)). On May 3rd, 2018, Ubisoft showed some Alpha footage of the game's combat system (shown below).

Crowdsourcing Controversy

On June 11th, 2018, Ubisoft revealed a cinematic trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 that prominently featured Pey'j and briefly showed Jade.

Additionally, Ubisoft announced that they will be partnering with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's company HitRECord to crowdsource some of the art and music for the game.^[8] Ubisoft will split $50,000 between artists and musicians whose work makes it into the game. Some critics argued that this tactic would pit freelancers against each other, as it would lead creatives to spend energy for work that may not be used or paid.^[9] Levitt defended this practice in a Medium^[10] post, saying HitRECord pays artists, will allow artists to keep the rights to their work, and that they are not soliciting complete works from these artists.

Reception

Beyond Good and Evil was praised by critics for its originality and story, but critics were not as enthused about the game's combat. The game received scored ranging from 83-87 on Metacritic, depending on platform.^[2] The game was nominated for Game of the Year, Original Game Character of the Year (Jade) and Excellence in Game Design at the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards. Several publications have lauded it as one of the best games for its generation of consoles.

Online Presence

The game has generated a sizable online presence. The game has over 62,000 likes on Facebook, ^[3] its subreddit has over 1,500 readers,^[4] and its Twitter account has over 3,600 followers.^[5] Additionally, fan art of the games can be found on Tumblr^[6] and DeviantArt.^[7]