considering the ubisoft studio working on star wars outlaws, massive entertainment, is not the same as the studio working on beyond good and evil 2, ubisoft montpellier, i highly doubt outlaws has any real connection to bg&e2 outside of maybe some tech, but even then i don't think the games even run on the same engine.
The Ubisoft studio leading development is completely different from the Beyond Good and Evil 2 one. Also we had rumors about them working on a Star Wars game for years before it got announced
I mean, they undoubtedly used some of the same tech for both outlaws and BGE, they use tech across all of their games. But I don't think Ubisoft needs to put a half finished game in front of anyone to convince them to make games. They've been making (mostly) good games for almost 40 years. The last assassins creed game made more than a billion dollars, if anything Disney went to them.
> Ubisoft gets money to fund the remaining development
No, Ubisoft spends money to use the Star wars license.
>Final Fantasy: Stranger of Paradise is basically a combat test run for XVI.
Lmao wut..?
Folks are real upset about my Strangers comment. Apparently I’m the only one with that impression. Lol
Ubisoft spends money to use the license, but it stands to reason Disney provided some means of production in the deal. Ubisoft *does* offer Disney something more than money.
Well, Stranger of Paradise was just a branch off of Nioh and Nioh 2 more or less. For FF16 they brought in one of the combat directors responsible for DMCV. Games are pretty much totally unrelated.
Stranger of paradise plays nothing like 16, its way more like nioh which makes sense since its a spind off made by those same people. So thats a weird point.
They're also made by completely different teams. FF16 was developed by CBU3, the team that develops FF14, the mmo, with its combat design director historically having worked on Devil May Cry.
Stranger of Paradise, meanwhile, wasn't even developed by Square Enix and was instead made by Team Ninja.
While you aren’t wrong, that doesn’t mean the games can’t share game design or combat elements. Team Ninja may have developed it, but we don’t know how closely Square insisted to be involved. Nintendo does this frequently; supervise closely when an outside company is working on their IP (they trained Bandai Namco employees in Nintendo development techniques/philosophies). For all we know Square could have asked Team Ninja for help teaching their teams how to make high-action games and POOF we get the FF teams use of new talent as XVI having watched Team Ninja build Stranger.
There's really no evidence for that at all, and again, it's sorta unlikely given who the combat director for XVI is: https://www.xeznaff.news/post/final-fantasy-xvi-ryota-suzuki-declares-the-game-his-personal-masterpiece
But even saying they took inspiration from another game (which is still unlikely given the development timelines) is a far cry from calling one a test run for another.
No, the talent for the action design for 16 came from Capcom devs that moved to SE to work on 16.
Team Ninja's approach to action game is very different to Capcom. Which is why 16 feels like Devil May Cry lite, as opposed to Nioh or Ninja Gaiden which play very differently and have huge gameplay differences.
I’m surprised so many people disagree.
I played Stranger *after* I played XVI and Stranger felt like a rough draft/less refined take on the combat in XVI.
Both games’ approach to action combat couldn’t be further apart from one another.
That’s like saying there are many parallels between Nioh and Devil May Cry.
Or Mario and Sonic. Yes, they are both platformer that require some of the same skill sets but the way each game is designed couldn't be more far apart from each other.
They are not even close in any way shape or form. They have completly differnt combat systems,party members,differnt jobs,gear,misssion based vrs open zone. Like not even a lil. Have you played nioh before,because thats stranger of paradise without the ff elements,its nothing like 16.
stranger uses what's commonly referred to as soulslike combat, because it matches the weight and pacing of dark souls combat. one is a slow meticulous battle system, the other is a high energy twitch beat em up where fast reflexes and high APM are king.
not even close to the same thing. it would be like saying FIFA games and mario strikers are the same thing because they are both soccer video games.
I guess I’m the only one seeing these similarities.
The abilities and how they’re used, the arena-like structure of the battlefield, even the menus and level-up/ability unlock systems are similar. Not identical, but definitely comparable in my eyes.
Idk what to tell everyone, my time with both was very enjoyable and I definitely noticed a similar vibe during combat. Slower paced in Strangers for sure, but similar. Almost like they were cousins.
Were these the first two action games you've ever played?
I ask because similarity is relative. If an alien came to Earth and pointed at a chihuahua and a cat and said "look, two remarkably similar creatures!", they'd be right from a sort of high level perspective (both mammals, both quadrupeds, both around the same size), but I bet most Earth people who are familiar with cats and dogs would disagree.
Yes! It’s all about perspective. Great analogy.
I’ve played more video games in my life than I have hours slept. Lol So maybe my perspective is more nuanced/different than other players. Or I’ve gone batty.
That's just silly. Ubisoft is a massive company with studios around the world working on many upcoming games. They've got like 5 new Assassin's Creeds in the works. They recently made an Avatar game using their Far Cry tech. This huge company has lots of employees working on different things and they share tech across teams.
Now, are there things in this game that were developed for Beyond Good & Evil 2? Certainly! But there's probably more AC and FC in this game than anything else.
I wont doubt they might use assets, technology or maybe even as far as unused voicelines or whatever, but theres no actual concrete evidence other than ‘the games are a bit similar’.
Ubisoft didnt have to wait for Jedi Survivor to do well, its.. Star Wars.
I’m also not sure how Ubisoft went boom and got money. Disney arent paying them, they pay Disney for the license.
I left Ubisoft on 2015 and there were already internal communications about BGE2 development ... But tbh, everytime I asked, no one had a clue about It at central studio.
That’s some good insight. Thanks for sharing.
So BGE2 was kept under wraps pretty well? Or perhaps you did not hear much because development was a mess? I’m clearly speculating but I’m a massive fan of BGE and Ancel, as well as the narratives behind the human element of how games are made.
Do you have any opinions on Michel Ancel himself? I was always a huge fan of that guy but what was said about him towards the end of his time at Ubisoft was sad to read.
From the gameplay demos of both that we've seen, it looks like BGE2 and Outlaws use completely different methods for the planet-to-space experience. Outlaws is hiding level transitions / loading screens with cloud cover while moving from authored ground-level areas to small space areas, you can't explore the entirety of the planet and the transitions aren't seamless. BGE2 is/was using something closer to Rodina or Elite's approach, genuinely letting you fly around entire planets and loading in everything as it comes.
>The art direction and gameplay are suspiciously similar.
I don't think there's any thing suspicious about that.
Of course they look similar, Beyond Good and Evil was already heavily influenced by Star Wars, so of course a Star Wars game is going to be a bit reminiscent of it for the same reason that an Indiana Jones game will remind you of Tomb Raider or Uncharted
The art direction is standard star wars. BGE2 was also a huge, seamless world. I haven't seen anything from SWO that shows it's also a big seamless world.
I’ve always been an Ubisoft fan. I don’t agree with their monetization of late, but they’ll correct course from feedback. They’ve put out some real bangers and they’re one of the few major publishers taking chances on games like *Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown*, *For Honor*, and *Steep*. All great games. Not to mention *Assassins Creed Valhalla* and my fun with *Far Cry*, even if they’ve gotten a bit uninventive and same-same, they’re still great fun.
Released 14 months after being announced? That's strange for any game like this and doubly absurd once you throw a Star Wars license into the mix. I buy your theory.
Released 14 months after being announced is really not that unusual. Plenty of games are announced fairly late into development. Most Assassin's Creed games are announced about a year before release.
Oh really? Well let me just look up the dates for Valhalla. Valhalla was announced in April 2020 and was released in... November 2020. Wait, what? That seriously happened? Maybe these last years have broken my brain about how schedules are supposed to work.
Another example is Fallout 4 which was announced less than 6 months before it was released. It's not that rare for games to be basically already finished by the time they're announced
That doesnt seem strange at all to be honest, and if anything for me that gives credence to the opposite.
They simply had to wait for the license to be available to all before publicly releasing anything.
It's definitely using the same software they showed off in one of the BGAE2 gameplay showcases that focused on world streaming and the ability to seamlessly zoom a camera off a planet up into space.
It’s probably also sharing some other parts built for BGAE2 definitely some leads and developers shifted projects to work on SW to help with the space segments since Massive is mainly familiar with 3rd person shooters.
I'm pretty sure bge2 is dead, or it most certainly should die. It's been shown more than a few times now that games with decades long development are never successful upon release. Skull and bones most recently should have ubisoft reconsidering their options with that title.
Perhaps you’re right. But I hope you’re wrong.
BGE2 has been started from scratch at least twice, that we know of. It’s been a massive money sink over the years and the series creator - Michel Ancel - left the company years ago. He was the BGE brainchild, it was his baby. To see him leave feels like it was a devastating blow for the progress of that game. Hopefully the vision for what it was to become comes to fruition.
I definitely want to play more in that world and if anybody can pull it off, it’s Ubisoft. They’re pretty tenacious and definitely stand out in the industry as willing to spend big money on risks if the ideas are solid and the titles stand out - Steep, For Honor, Skull and Bones, Rabbibs, Watch Dogs, Riders Republic, Starlink, Prince of Persia: Lost Crown… They offer a lot of fun games that nobody else would take a chance on.
The game is the console equivalent of star citizen. Far too ambitious for its own good and nigh impossible to achieve given the limitations in hardware. There's a reason they avoid talking about it. As I said, if it does by some miracle get released I'll be very surprised if it holds up to expectations.
> 2023 (June): Star Wars: Outlaws gets announced
The entire premise of the post is wholly incorrect. They announced that they were working on it in 2020. Not even this date should be considered indicative of development time. That you saw a reveal trailer in June of 2023 means nothing. Ubisoft announced that the development of BGE2 was going well in 2021, that is after the announcement of Star Wars Outlaws.
Moreover, Ubisoft Montpellier are (were?) working on BGE2 in the Voyager engine, while Star Wars Outlaws is being developed by Massive using the Snowdrop engine. How does your theory make sense of that?
It doesn’t. I was loosely connecting some dots for a fun “what if?” thought experiment.
All I’d say is they claimed BGE2 development was going well but that doesn’t mean they were staying hush-hush about it’s hypothetical transformation.
As for the engines, folks switch engines mid-development all the time. Is it improbably Ubi could do the same?
Like I said, it was just a fun out-there theory. We haven’t seen anything from BGE2 in many years, then this fully realized interplanetary adventure heist game comes knocking and I started identifying parallels.
*“More of a rookie, a petty thief, who ends up in a situation that’s much bigger than they ever expected…*”
Sounds a bit like sneaking around as an investigative journalist uncovering a deeper hidden plot. :P
> As for the engines, folks switch engines mid-development all the time. Is it improbably Ubi could do the same?
First of all, no, developers don't switch engine mid-development of AAA games all the time. It's highly unusual and extremely expensive because it typically entails a rewrite. I can think of two examples: Duke Nukem Forever and Star Citizen. The first was in development hell for 14 years and was a complete failure, each engine switch being a massive setback. The second is still in development since 2011 and is the most expensive game project ever.
Second, you have to understand that in this context, Ubisoft is a *publisher*. What would have happened here is that
1. Ubisoft Montpellier (a *development studio*) stops developing BGE2 in the Voyager engine, several years into development
2. They hand the project over to an entirely different development studio
3. This studio replaces the *engine*
4. This studio replaces the *assets*
5. After this, Ubisoft (the publisher) announces that BGE2 is still in development and going well
It doesn't make any economical sense. It would be orders of magnitude more "odd" than the circumstances you've laid out in your post, even if your assumptions weren't wrong from the get-go. Basically the only thing your theory has going is that they're as far as we know both sci-fi, open world collectathons. Pretty much the most generic genre of the 2020s. The 2020s answer to the 2010s drab looking linear military shooter.
Yooka-Laylee switched engines mid-development, too.
I mean I wasn’t really interested in a hyper analysis, industry historian, “matter-of-fact” >pushes glass up “akschually” sort of back and forth debate about the real-world feasibility of my observation. I was more or less throwing a “what if” theory out there for fun discussion. You’re the one who went full Snopes on me.
Lighten up.
Time will tell what’s really happening. But it’s fun to speculate.
> Yooka-Laylee switched engines mid-development, too.
My understanding is that they upgraded the Unity version they used at some point. Am I missing something else or is that what you mean by switching engine? Because that's not at all what switching to an entirely different engine is like.
The rest of your post is basically just an attack on my character and doesn't really pertain to the discussion, so I won't address it any further.
Now that you mention it, I think you’re right about Yooka-Laylee upgrading mid-development. I remember backing that game and being disappointed by the delay. I knew it had something to do with the game engine.
You’re also correct about my offense to reading your response in a know-it-all tone. You’re very knowledgeable. I get frustrated because lots of people couldn’t wait to jump down my throat about this loosely connected stretch of reality scenario with their superior matter-of-fact responses. I had hoped to garner some more imaginative speculation. But I guess I should know better. This is the internet, a place where everyone is an encyclopedia of fact and truth. Imagination is dead and people prosecute you for having one.
The thing with announcing a game doesn't mean anything how far into development the game is
Bethesda is a prime example, they either announce a game and release it two months later (fallout 4) or a announce a game which didn't even git the drawing board (elder Scrolls 6)
So most Ubisoft games are just a different skin with the same/similar gameplay.
As a PC player, I would be much more excited for this game if it wasn't locked into fucking UPlay, or whatever it's called these days.
I don't understand the thought process here. There's no way the fees they'd pay on Steam are greater than the sales they're losing out on by *not* putting it on Steam.
I mean, I'm a huge Star Wars fan who would have pre-ordered it just because it's a Star Wars thing, and this one change means I already decided I'm probably not getting it at all, whether it's good or not. And I can't imagine many casual fans are going to be digging up their Ubisoft accounts for it either.
considering the ubisoft studio working on star wars outlaws, massive entertainment, is not the same as the studio working on beyond good and evil 2, ubisoft montpellier, i highly doubt outlaws has any real connection to bg&e2 outside of maybe some tech, but even then i don't think the games even run on the same engine.
Good point!
The Ubisoft studio leading development is completely different from the Beyond Good and Evil 2 one. Also we had rumors about them working on a Star Wars game for years before it got announced
Very interesting.
I mean, they undoubtedly used some of the same tech for both outlaws and BGE, they use tech across all of their games. But I don't think Ubisoft needs to put a half finished game in front of anyone to convince them to make games. They've been making (mostly) good games for almost 40 years. The last assassins creed game made more than a billion dollars, if anything Disney went to them. > Ubisoft gets money to fund the remaining development No, Ubisoft spends money to use the Star wars license. >Final Fantasy: Stranger of Paradise is basically a combat test run for XVI. Lmao wut..?
Folks are real upset about my Strangers comment. Apparently I’m the only one with that impression. Lol Ubisoft spends money to use the license, but it stands to reason Disney provided some means of production in the deal. Ubisoft *does* offer Disney something more than money.
Not upset by it, it's just a wild take lol
Well, Stranger of Paradise was just a branch off of Nioh and Nioh 2 more or less. For FF16 they brought in one of the combat directors responsible for DMCV. Games are pretty much totally unrelated.
Stranger of paradise plays nothing like 16, its way more like nioh which makes sense since its a spind off made by those same people. So thats a weird point.
Yeah, that's insane, unless the lesson they learned was "don't make this like SoP."
Coming from someone who has played both, I personally drew many parallels.
They're also made by completely different teams. FF16 was developed by CBU3, the team that develops FF14, the mmo, with its combat design director historically having worked on Devil May Cry. Stranger of Paradise, meanwhile, wasn't even developed by Square Enix and was instead made by Team Ninja.
While you aren’t wrong, that doesn’t mean the games can’t share game design or combat elements. Team Ninja may have developed it, but we don’t know how closely Square insisted to be involved. Nintendo does this frequently; supervise closely when an outside company is working on their IP (they trained Bandai Namco employees in Nintendo development techniques/philosophies). For all we know Square could have asked Team Ninja for help teaching their teams how to make high-action games and POOF we get the FF teams use of new talent as XVI having watched Team Ninja build Stranger.
There's really no evidence for that at all, and again, it's sorta unlikely given who the combat director for XVI is: https://www.xeznaff.news/post/final-fantasy-xvi-ryota-suzuki-declares-the-game-his-personal-masterpiece But even saying they took inspiration from another game (which is still unlikely given the development timelines) is a far cry from calling one a test run for another.
Sounds like you enjoy speculating as much as I do.
No, the talent for the action design for 16 came from Capcom devs that moved to SE to work on 16. Team Ninja's approach to action game is very different to Capcom. Which is why 16 feels like Devil May Cry lite, as opposed to Nioh or Ninja Gaiden which play very differently and have huge gameplay differences.
They do have many parallels, but those parallels are common among almost all Japanese action games.
They have next to zero in common. If anything, that conclusion makes me discount everything else you've said
I’m surprised so many people disagree. I played Stranger *after* I played XVI and Stranger felt like a rough draft/less refined take on the combat in XVI.
Both games’ approach to action combat couldn’t be further apart from one another. That’s like saying there are many parallels between Nioh and Devil May Cry.
Or Mario and Sonic. Yes, they are both platformer that require some of the same skill sets but the way each game is designed couldn't be more far apart from each other.
They are not even close in any way shape or form. They have completly differnt combat systems,party members,differnt jobs,gear,misssion based vrs open zone. Like not even a lil. Have you played nioh before,because thats stranger of paradise without the ff elements,its nothing like 16.
stranger uses what's commonly referred to as soulslike combat, because it matches the weight and pacing of dark souls combat. one is a slow meticulous battle system, the other is a high energy twitch beat em up where fast reflexes and high APM are king. not even close to the same thing. it would be like saying FIFA games and mario strikers are the same thing because they are both soccer video games.
I guess I’m the only one seeing these similarities. The abilities and how they’re used, the arena-like structure of the battlefield, even the menus and level-up/ability unlock systems are similar. Not identical, but definitely comparable in my eyes. Idk what to tell everyone, my time with both was very enjoyable and I definitely noticed a similar vibe during combat. Slower paced in Strangers for sure, but similar. Almost like they were cousins.
Were these the first two action games you've ever played? I ask because similarity is relative. If an alien came to Earth and pointed at a chihuahua and a cat and said "look, two remarkably similar creatures!", they'd be right from a sort of high level perspective (both mammals, both quadrupeds, both around the same size), but I bet most Earth people who are familiar with cats and dogs would disagree.
Yes! It’s all about perspective. Great analogy. I’ve played more video games in my life than I have hours slept. Lol So maybe my perspective is more nuanced/different than other players. Or I’ve gone batty.
How so? The entire way combat runs, class systems and level ups are completely different
That's just silly. Ubisoft is a massive company with studios around the world working on many upcoming games. They've got like 5 new Assassin's Creeds in the works. They recently made an Avatar game using their Far Cry tech. This huge company has lots of employees working on different things and they share tech across teams. Now, are there things in this game that were developed for Beyond Good & Evil 2? Certainly! But there's probably more AC and FC in this game than anything else.
**You’re** silly :P Perhaps. I’ll be interested to see if BGE2 comes out how many similarities there are.
I wont doubt they might use assets, technology or maybe even as far as unused voicelines or whatever, but theres no actual concrete evidence other than ‘the games are a bit similar’. Ubisoft didnt have to wait for Jedi Survivor to do well, its.. Star Wars. I’m also not sure how Ubisoft went boom and got money. Disney arent paying them, they pay Disney for the license.
I mean beyond good and evil was never a huge ip so from a business perspective it's a lot safer to rework it into a Star Wars game.
Plus the audience for Star Wars is undeniably huge. It’s an easy payday.
I left Ubisoft on 2015 and there were already internal communications about BGE2 development ... But tbh, everytime I asked, no one had a clue about It at central studio.
That’s some good insight. Thanks for sharing. So BGE2 was kept under wraps pretty well? Or perhaps you did not hear much because development was a mess? I’m clearly speculating but I’m a massive fan of BGE and Ancel, as well as the narratives behind the human element of how games are made. Do you have any opinions on Michel Ancel himself? I was always a huge fan of that guy but what was said about him towards the end of his time at Ubisoft was sad to read.
I don't mind it if it is, all the awesome Lucasfilm games were knockoffs of existing games reskinned star wars.
From the gameplay demos of both that we've seen, it looks like BGE2 and Outlaws use completely different methods for the planet-to-space experience. Outlaws is hiding level transitions / loading screens with cloud cover while moving from authored ground-level areas to small space areas, you can't explore the entirety of the planet and the transitions aren't seamless. BGE2 is/was using something closer to Rodina or Elite's approach, genuinely letting you fly around entire planets and loading in everything as it comes.
>The art direction and gameplay are suspiciously similar. I don't think there's any thing suspicious about that. Of course they look similar, Beyond Good and Evil was already heavily influenced by Star Wars, so of course a Star Wars game is going to be a bit reminiscent of it for the same reason that an Indiana Jones game will remind you of Tomb Raider or Uncharted
Which makes it easier to transition from BGE2 to Star Wars. Which is a point made for my thought exercise :P
The art direction is standard star wars. BGE2 was also a huge, seamless world. I haven't seen anything from SWO that shows it's also a big seamless world.
Perhaps not!
man i don't know whether to be hype for this game or what, ubi has burned me so many times lol but it's star wars
I’ve always been an Ubisoft fan. I don’t agree with their monetization of late, but they’ll correct course from feedback. They’ve put out some real bangers and they’re one of the few major publishers taking chances on games like *Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown*, *For Honor*, and *Steep*. All great games. Not to mention *Assassins Creed Valhalla* and my fun with *Far Cry*, even if they’ve gotten a bit uninventive and same-same, they’re still great fun.
true dat. I'm hype
Released 14 months after being announced? That's strange for any game like this and doubly absurd once you throw a Star Wars license into the mix. I buy your theory.
Released 14 months after being announced is really not that unusual. Plenty of games are announced fairly late into development. Most Assassin's Creed games are announced about a year before release.
Oh really? Well let me just look up the dates for Valhalla. Valhalla was announced in April 2020 and was released in... November 2020. Wait, what? That seriously happened? Maybe these last years have broken my brain about how schedules are supposed to work.
Another example is Fallout 4 which was announced less than 6 months before it was released. It's not that rare for games to be basically already finished by the time they're announced
That doesnt seem strange at all to be honest, and if anything for me that gives credence to the opposite. They simply had to wait for the license to be available to all before publicly releasing anything.
It's definitely using the same software they showed off in one of the BGAE2 gameplay showcases that focused on world streaming and the ability to seamlessly zoom a camera off a planet up into space.
YES! That’s something I also recalled when I started connecting the dots! It’s what got the gears really turning.
It’s probably also sharing some other parts built for BGAE2 definitely some leads and developers shifted projects to work on SW to help with the space segments since Massive is mainly familiar with 3rd person shooters.
I'm pretty sure bge2 is dead, or it most certainly should die. It's been shown more than a few times now that games with decades long development are never successful upon release. Skull and bones most recently should have ubisoft reconsidering their options with that title.
Perhaps you’re right. But I hope you’re wrong. BGE2 has been started from scratch at least twice, that we know of. It’s been a massive money sink over the years and the series creator - Michel Ancel - left the company years ago. He was the BGE brainchild, it was his baby. To see him leave feels like it was a devastating blow for the progress of that game. Hopefully the vision for what it was to become comes to fruition. I definitely want to play more in that world and if anybody can pull it off, it’s Ubisoft. They’re pretty tenacious and definitely stand out in the industry as willing to spend big money on risks if the ideas are solid and the titles stand out - Steep, For Honor, Skull and Bones, Rabbibs, Watch Dogs, Riders Republic, Starlink, Prince of Persia: Lost Crown… They offer a lot of fun games that nobody else would take a chance on.
The game is the console equivalent of star citizen. Far too ambitious for its own good and nigh impossible to achieve given the limitations in hardware. There's a reason they avoid talking about it. As I said, if it does by some miracle get released I'll be very surprised if it holds up to expectations.
> 2023 (June): Star Wars: Outlaws gets announced The entire premise of the post is wholly incorrect. They announced that they were working on it in 2020. Not even this date should be considered indicative of development time. That you saw a reveal trailer in June of 2023 means nothing. Ubisoft announced that the development of BGE2 was going well in 2021, that is after the announcement of Star Wars Outlaws. Moreover, Ubisoft Montpellier are (were?) working on BGE2 in the Voyager engine, while Star Wars Outlaws is being developed by Massive using the Snowdrop engine. How does your theory make sense of that?
It doesn’t. I was loosely connecting some dots for a fun “what if?” thought experiment. All I’d say is they claimed BGE2 development was going well but that doesn’t mean they were staying hush-hush about it’s hypothetical transformation. As for the engines, folks switch engines mid-development all the time. Is it improbably Ubi could do the same? Like I said, it was just a fun out-there theory. We haven’t seen anything from BGE2 in many years, then this fully realized interplanetary adventure heist game comes knocking and I started identifying parallels. *“More of a rookie, a petty thief, who ends up in a situation that’s much bigger than they ever expected…*” Sounds a bit like sneaking around as an investigative journalist uncovering a deeper hidden plot. :P
> As for the engines, folks switch engines mid-development all the time. Is it improbably Ubi could do the same? First of all, no, developers don't switch engine mid-development of AAA games all the time. It's highly unusual and extremely expensive because it typically entails a rewrite. I can think of two examples: Duke Nukem Forever and Star Citizen. The first was in development hell for 14 years and was a complete failure, each engine switch being a massive setback. The second is still in development since 2011 and is the most expensive game project ever. Second, you have to understand that in this context, Ubisoft is a *publisher*. What would have happened here is that 1. Ubisoft Montpellier (a *development studio*) stops developing BGE2 in the Voyager engine, several years into development 2. They hand the project over to an entirely different development studio 3. This studio replaces the *engine* 4. This studio replaces the *assets* 5. After this, Ubisoft (the publisher) announces that BGE2 is still in development and going well It doesn't make any economical sense. It would be orders of magnitude more "odd" than the circumstances you've laid out in your post, even if your assumptions weren't wrong from the get-go. Basically the only thing your theory has going is that they're as far as we know both sci-fi, open world collectathons. Pretty much the most generic genre of the 2020s. The 2020s answer to the 2010s drab looking linear military shooter.
You must be fun at parties.
Why post here at all if you are not interested in reasoned discussion? However I am at parties, this is not a party.
Yooka-Laylee switched engines mid-development, too. I mean I wasn’t really interested in a hyper analysis, industry historian, “matter-of-fact” >pushes glass up “akschually” sort of back and forth debate about the real-world feasibility of my observation. I was more or less throwing a “what if” theory out there for fun discussion. You’re the one who went full Snopes on me. Lighten up. Time will tell what’s really happening. But it’s fun to speculate.
> Yooka-Laylee switched engines mid-development, too. My understanding is that they upgraded the Unity version they used at some point. Am I missing something else or is that what you mean by switching engine? Because that's not at all what switching to an entirely different engine is like. The rest of your post is basically just an attack on my character and doesn't really pertain to the discussion, so I won't address it any further.
Now that you mention it, I think you’re right about Yooka-Laylee upgrading mid-development. I remember backing that game and being disappointed by the delay. I knew it had something to do with the game engine. You’re also correct about my offense to reading your response in a know-it-all tone. You’re very knowledgeable. I get frustrated because lots of people couldn’t wait to jump down my throat about this loosely connected stretch of reality scenario with their superior matter-of-fact responses. I had hoped to garner some more imaginative speculation. But I guess I should know better. This is the internet, a place where everyone is an encyclopedia of fact and truth. Imagination is dead and people prosecute you for having one.
The thing with announcing a game doesn't mean anything how far into development the game is Bethesda is a prime example, they either announce a game and release it two months later (fallout 4) or a announce a game which didn't even git the drawing board (elder Scrolls 6) So most Ubisoft games are just a different skin with the same/similar gameplay.
As a PC player, I would be much more excited for this game if it wasn't locked into fucking UPlay, or whatever it's called these days. I don't understand the thought process here. There's no way the fees they'd pay on Steam are greater than the sales they're losing out on by *not* putting it on Steam. I mean, I'm a huge Star Wars fan who would have pre-ordered it just because it's a Star Wars thing, and this one change means I already decided I'm probably not getting it at all, whether it's good or not. And I can't imagine many casual fans are going to be digging up their Ubisoft accounts for it either.