Industry veteran and creator of both Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil Michel Ancel has announced his retirement from the video game industry.
In a recent Instagram post, Ancel informed fans and followers that he would be leaving the video game industry in order to focus on new projects with a wild life sanctuary..
“Today is very special for me. After more than 30 years, I’ve decided to stop working on video games and fully focus on my second passion : Wild Life !
My new project takes place in the real world and consists in a wild life open sanctuary dedicated to education , nature lovers and … wild animals.video games part
Many of you might want to know what will happen to Wild and BGE2. No worries, since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well. Beautiful things to be seen soon.
May the fox be with you”
Michel Ancel is largely credited with helping launch the Rayman series, as well as directing the title Beyond Good & Evil. Despite Ancel’s departure, he assures fans that survival game WiLD and Beyond Good & Evil 2 are in good hands with independent teams.
Ubisoft released their own statement about Ancel’s departure in a news update about the development of Beyond Good & Evil 2.
“As he said via Instagram today, Michel Ancel has decided to stop working in video games in order to focus on other personal projects, and will no longer be part of the BG&E2 team. For years, Michel imparted his creative vision and helped us remain faithful to BG&E’s incredible universe. His uncompromising passion pushed us to redefine what was possible in crafting an expansive, multicultural, and futuristic science-fiction world. As we move forward, we are all committed to remaining true to this vision.
As Michel noted, he hasn’t been directly involved in BG&E2 for some time now, as the team have been hard at work building on top of the solid creative foundation he helped shape. The team’s collective strength has us well on our way to developing a flagship next-generation action-adventure game. We recently passed an important internal milestone, delivering a build that proves our Space Pirate Fantasy and offers hours of gameplay and an incredible level of freedom in a seamless online sandbox, building upon the promise of our tech demos shown at E3. I’m incredibly proud of the team’s perseverance, dedication to each other and ongoing commitment to developing an amazing game.”
Image: Instagram
