One of the creative minds behind Rayman, Rabbids, and Beyond Good & Evil has left the videogame industry to pursue something else entirely. Ubisoft vet Michel Ancel took to Instagram (below) to reveal that his next project is a wildlife sanctuary “dedicated to education, nature lovers, and wild animals”.
“Today is very special for me,” Ancel says. “After more than 30 years, I’ve decided to stop working on videogames and fully focus on my second passion: wild life! My new project takes place in the real world and consists in an open wildlife sanctuary dedicated to education, nature lovers, and wild animals.”
Ancel goes on to say that his departure won’t have any effect on Wild or Beyond Good & Evil 2, and that the teams on the projects have been “autonomous” for some time now. Ubisoft also issued a statement explaining that Ancel hasn’t been directly involved with Beyond Good & Evil 2 for some time now as the team works to build on top of the creative vision he laid out. Beyond Good & Evil 2 senior producer Guillaume Brunier also says that progress on the new PC game is coming along nicely, but there is still much to do.
Brunier further explains that Ubisoft is ramping up the size of the team to help with development duties and that the team’s next goal is to “share more and show you the game in action sometime next year”. That is dependent on the team passing its internal production milestone, though.
“We know many of you are eager to hear more from the team, get more detail on the story and universe, and try out the gameplay,” says Brunier. “We’re equally excited to share all of that with you, but we will take the time needed to get it right. We want to go beyond the high expectations you have of us, and that we have for ourselves.”
If you want to see what other upcoming PC games there are on the horizon, you know where to click.