Beyond Good & Evil 2 "needs power"

Beyond Good & Evil 2 might be too ambitious for the current generation of consoles to handle, creator Michel Ancel has revealed.

Talking with Eurogamer at E3 last week, Ancel confirmed reports that Ubisoft is now looking beyond the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for the long-in-development sequel to his acclaimed 2003 adventure.

Ancel wouldn't say for certain that it won't release on current gen hardware but revealed that his team is struggling to squeeze the game onto today's systems.

"I think we are still thinking about what we have to cut to fit on today's consoles, what we can improve. We really want to make the game perfect and as good as possible without cutting things. There is special gameplay that we really want to keep but it needs a certain power."

There has been very little said about the game since its reveal back in 2008 and, alas, Ancel wasn't forthcoming with much in the way of new information last week.

"I'd prefer you to see it when it is ready because it is something special to play," he politely replied to our demands for details.

However, he did outline why development has taken so long.

"After working on Rabbids, I then jumped into Beyond Good & Evil 2 for a long time. The development is advanced but we need more time to go further because with the hardware and the engine we have to improve it.

"So we took a little break and decided to make a 2D Rayman game because today's consoles are capable of really incredible 2D graphics and nobody has really used those abilities to display very HD pictures at 60FPS. In parallel with that, we continue with Beyond Good & Evil."

The original game – which saw a critically-acclaimed HD re-release earlier this year – while building a loyal fanbase, was hardly a huge commercial success for the publisher first time round.

However, Ancel is convinced the IP's luster has grown in the years since, and that the sequel has a better chance of connecting with audiences.

"We put a lot of our time, our energy, our patience into that game. So we were disappointed by the results," said Ancel of the original.

"At the same time, today we've been asked more about this game than any other game that Ubisoft has done in the same period. So this game is the one that people are really focussing on today. So it encourages us to continue on Beyond Good & Evil 2."

Ancel's next game, the delightful-looking Rayman: Origins platformer, is due out on PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 later this year.