Beyond Good & Evil 2 to be “more accessible” |
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| BY Matthew Razak May. 31st, 2008 | More on: |

Anytime I hear the words ‘more’ and ‘accessible’ grouped together in a conversation about an upcoming videogame, I get a little twinge of fear in my stomach. I can tell you that when I read that Ubisoft chief exec Yves Guillemot said that the newly announced sequel to Beyond Good & Evil was going to be “more accessible,” that twinge turned into full on dread. All too often when games have become “more accessible” they’ve become stupider, easier and less challenging, and that seems to be exactly Guillemot and Ubisoft’s plan.
“We saw with Beyond Good & Evil that so many customers were extremely happy with the game,” Guillemot told Next-Gen at this years Ubidays. “We had a different audience at that time. We had more core gamers than casual gamers than we have today.
“We think the game was probably a little too difficult for the general gamers at that time. We’re going to make it more accessible and make sure that it’s really done for the new generation that’s come into videogames.”
Alright, I’ll admit the game didn’t sell well and Ubi probably wants to shake things up to make sure it does this time. But was it really that hard? I was challenged throughout but never to the point of exaparation and I don’t think even a casual gamer would have that much difficulty with it. Maybe the large open world would be initmidating but take that away and I don’t think you’ve got a Beyond Good & Evil game anymore. And you definitely won’t have as great a story. The core gamers are still here Ubi, please make sure you don’t forget us. Here’s hoping that more accessible means a deeper story and intrinsic controls and not the dumbing down of the characters and simple button mashing.
[See also: Beyond Good & Evil 2 gallery]









June 1st, 2008
at 3:40 am
I was inspired by the news of a sequel enough to actually go back and start the first one, and I really have to say that I am throughly enthralled with it so far. It’s full of really great touches, the voice acting is more than passable, and the soundtrack is surprisingly good.Or at least that’s what I surmised from the first hour or so of it.
As far as this accessibility business goes, I can’t say I know who exactly Ubisoft is making Beyond Good and Evil accessible *for.* I was under the impression that the reason Ubisoft makes games like this for the HD consoles is because the owners of those consoles like their games deep and expansive, unlike, ostensibly, Wii owners, who like their games cheap, shallow, and stupid.
I’m getting the sense as of late that Ubisoft has no idea what is doing when it comes to this flawed casual approach of theirs.
June 1st, 2008
at 5:06 am
While I agree with you on the front that the game should be made for gamers who like in depth games I am a proud Wii owner and enjoy its many non-cheap, non-shallow and non-stupid games. Every system has it’s good and bad games man no need to hate on just one.
June 1st, 2008
at 7:27 am
I think I was unclear in my comment on Wii gamers. My intention was to say that Wii gamers are *seen* by Ubisoft as liking their games ” cheap, shallow, and stupid.” I am a Wii owner myself. The adjectives I used were reflections of an ongoing frustration with Ubisoft, who have no clue what they are doing when it comes to Wii.
I should have re-read my comment before posting.
June 1st, 2008
at 9:42 pm
Ahh well in that case I concur.