The creative director of Beyond Good and Evil 2, Emile Morel, has passed away at the age of 40, leaving behind a legacy of beloved Ubisoft classics and more. A Ubisoft game designer with a particularly long and storied tenure, Morel worked on Rayman Legends, among numerous other titles, which is often considered to be one of the finest side-scrolling platforming titles of all time.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 has had a long and troubled development period, with Morel only taking over the project earlier in 2023. While this meant that he didn't have the opportunity to see the project through before passing, his team members have highlighted that Morel did leave a lasting impression and appears to have been happy with the game's progress.
Though some feel that the ship has sailed for Beyond Good and Evil 2, this doesn't seem to be the case internally at Ubisoft. According to former Ubisoft narrative director Gabrielle Shrager, Morel was proud of the progress made on Beyond Good and Evil 2 and of the more recent Space Monkeys community program, through which fans could sign up to assist with the game's development in some capacity. "May it be shipped in his name," said Shrager. The cause of Morel's passing hasn't been publicly announced, but it is known that he was only 40 years old.
Ubisoft reiterated earlier this year that Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still in development, even though there hadn't been any major news on that front for some time at that point. The unexpected passing of its creative director will surely slow things down for the rest of the dev team. Ubisoft is yet to comment on Morel's death and what it means for the game's continued production.
As one of the biggest contemporary game productions seemingly stuck in development hell, the loss of Beyond Good and Evil 2's second creative director is a huge deal. It's worth remembering that Morel took over from the game's previous creative director, Jean-Marc Geffroy, earlier in 2023. Geffroy was taken off the project during a restructuring attempt at the studio, and with development still under wraps, it's unclear how much progress the game has made under Morel's guidance.
It's worth pointing out that things seem to have been going better over the past couple of years. Beyond Good and Evil 2 devs expected cancellation back in 2021, but the production persevered and may have even hit its stride after Morel took over. Whether such optimism is displaced or not remains to be seen.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is in development.
Source: LinkedIn