MULTI Rayman creator Michel Ancel quits game development

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Wild and Beyond Good & Evil 2 still in development, Ancel says

Rayman creator and Beyond Good & Evil game designer Michel Ancel says he’s leaving game development after more than 30 years. But Ancel says his two in-development projects, Wild Sheep Studios’ Wild and Ubisoft’s Beyond Good & Evil 2, will continue and “are going super well.”

Ancel announced his retirement from games on Friday via Instagram, where he said he will focus on a new project at a wildlife sanctuary.

“After more than 30 years, I’ve decided to stop working on video games and fully focus on my second passion: Wild Life!” Ancel said. “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 ...

“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.”


Following Ancel’s announcement, the Beyond Good & Evil 2 development team published an update about the long-in-development game, noting that the game designer hasn’t been “directly involved” in its creation for “some time now.”

Guillaume Brunier, senior producer on Beyond Good & Evil 2 at Ubisoft Montpellier, said in a statement:

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.

Polygon reached out to Wild Sheep Studio, the developer behind Wild, for a statement on Ancel’s departure and an update on the game’s development. The status of Wild, which was announced in 2014 and lists Sony as publisher, is unclear. Wild Sheep has not discussed the PlayStation 4 game publicly in years.

Ancel’s departure from games comes amid months of turmoil at publisher Ubisoft. The French publisher has been the subject of multiple misconduct allegations, which has led to the resignation of Serge Hascoët, formerly the company’s editorial chief; the resignation of Maxime Béland, an editorial vice president at Ubisoft Toronto; the firing of Ashraf Ismail, formerly Ubisoft Montréal’s creative director for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla; and the firing of Tommy Francois, the company’s vice president for editorial and creative services.


In the wake of those dismissals and other controversies, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot issued a public apology in a video statement released in September, saying he’s “fully committed to leading the change at Ubisoft and to ensuring we always uphold and exemplify our core values.”

Ancel worked with Ubisoft for more than 30 years. His earliest titles include 1989’s Intruder and 1990’s Brain Blasters. His most famous creation, the platforming series Rayman, kicked off with 1995’s Rayman.

 

[CerebralTiger]

RIP Wild.

 

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Rayman Creator Accused Of Abuse Following Ubisoft Departure


Ubisoft employees are accusing Michel Ancel, creator of Beyond Good & Evil and Rayman, of workplace abuse, leading to depression amongst developers.



Legendary Ubisoft developer Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil, has been accused of harassment and abuse in the workplace, shortly after his departure from the company. He joins a long and ever-growing list of Ubisoft employees who have been outed for hateful behavior in recent months.

Ubisoft has never been most people's favorite game developer. The company puts out some well-loved games, like the Assassin's Creed series and the successful family of Tom Clancy shooters. But it seems that for every one successful game the studio puts out, two new controversies erupt to drag Ubisoft's name through the mud. It faced harsh criticism recently for vilifying the Black Lives Matter movement in a recent mobile game, Tom Clancy's Elite Squad. The game's opening cinematic identifies a shadowy conspiracy organization that is using protestors to spread unrest throughout America, and even uses the raised fist image symbolic of Black Lives Matter to identify the sinister group. This cinematic rightfully caused a lot of outrage amongst gamers, and unfortunately, it's far from Ubisoft's only offense.




A new controversy has been reported by French journalists Erwan Cario and Marius Chapuis concerning the behavior of Michel Ancel. The story is translated on ResetEra (via The Gamer) and describes some frankly atrocious behavior from the famous game designer. According to several employees who were interviewed, Ancel is a manipulative and abusive boss, liable to tell employees that their work is great only to viciously contradict himself in later meetings. He was also accused of perpetuating crunch culture by forcing his subordinates to constantly make and remake parts of the game depending on his ever-changing vision. According to employees his behavior has led to widespread burnout and depression, and one veteran was quoted as saying "Around me, I've seen a good dozen people go on sick leave, probably more... Meeting people with tears in their eyes, it happens often. It's the first time I've seen that at Ubi." It's possible that these accusations are what led Ancel to leave the company last week.



A particularly enraging aspect of this new development is the fact that CEO Yves Guillemot was apparently well aware of the accusations that were lobbied against Ancel, but chose to ignore them, prioritizing his relationship with the developer and the acclaim that his skill at game creation brought to Ubisoft. Guillemot released a video on Twitter not long before a recent Ubisoft Forward presentation, addressing and apologizing for the workplace issues that had been revealed in Ubisoft, as well as the misrepresentation of Black Lives Matter. Most found this video halfhearted and underwhelming, and it's especially disappointing having learned that there were even more issues Guillemot was close to that he never addressed.

It's a major disappointment to see such a prominent game developer treat its employees this way. Video games are supposed to bring someone joy, and seeing this much misery and distress involved in their creation tarnishes their whole purpose. It's a frustratingly widespread issue, too; other developers like Rocksteady have been facing very similar controversies. No one deserves to be treated this way, especially not the hardworking developers who bring life to the games people love. Hopefully Ubisoft will finally learn from these controversies and take real, solid steps to improve the conduct of its employees in the future.

Source: ResetEra (via The Gamer)