Beyond Good & Evil 2 is now officially the most delayed AAA game

There are some world records out there that none of us strive for; they just happen, and Beyond Good & Evil 2, becoming the longest-delayed AAA title of all time, is one of them.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 was first announced in 2008 and has been in development ever since. This 14-year development period has managed to overtake previous record holder Duke Nukem Forever, which was finally released in 2011 after being announced in 1997.

The original Beyond Good & Evil game was released in 2003 as a third-person action game. Written by Michel Ancel, the brains behind the Rayman series, the game follows reporter and martial artist Jade as she attempts to uncover a sinister ongoing alien conspiracy.

The game was highly praised for both storytelling and design, although it wasn’t initially a commercial hit. There was a reason for that though, as Michel Ancel himself noted that consumers at the time had their interests elsewhere, with more established series and technically impressive games.

This particular world record was noted by GamesIndustry.biz’ Brendan Sinclair, who said that “Duke Nukem Forever lasted 5,156 days from its announcement in 1997 to its release in 2011.” Sinclair continues, “It has been 5,234 days since since the first trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2 was released.”

The first trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2 saw the light of day in 2008, and Ubisoft has – at various intervals – stated that the game is still in development. Despite this, Michel Ancel left Ubisoft in 2020, and while Ubisoft has said it’s still working on the game, little is yet to be seen about it.

At the moment we only know that a few months ago, despite all the adversities, we still had to continue working on the title. Narrative designer Sarah Arellano announced back in August that she had joined the Ubisoft team as the new lead writer on Beyond Good & Evil 2.

So there’s some work in the works, but only time will tell if Beyond Good & Evil gets the sequel it and its fans deserve.