Expected Beyond Good & Evil 2 news from E3 2021? Ubisoft blew it

Beyond Good and Evil 2 was noticeably absent from the Ubisoft Forward E3 2021 showcase. It’s omission was a let down for those waiting for updates to the cult classic’s prequel, and we may have to wait even longer for a new update.

With E3 going fully remote, studios and companies are wrapping up their presentations with clips and concepts of their upcoming projects.

Ubisoft showed up to their day with a dozen updates on their future games, including a new title based in James Cameron’s Avatar franchise.

The Ubisoft Forward presentation was stacked with new details on Rainbow Six Siege, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Just Dance 2022, and more. It was a strong conference overall, that could have culminated in a show-stopping teaser for Beyond Good and Evil 2 – but it didn’t.

To be fair to Ubisoft and the BGE2 team, their last blog post in July 2020 told fans not to expect anything from them as “digital or in-person [updates] will be extremely limited for the time being.”

Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier even said on the Triple Click podcast that the game was one of the many Ubisoft titles currently in “development hell.”

But with E3 being the pinnacle for game conferences throughout the year, you’d have expected the company to shine a ray of light on one of their most ambitious projects to date.

As the first remote E3, there wasn’t a great expectation to have playable demos or even lengthy sit-downs about a game’s current development – which sounds perfect for a troubled game that still has a passionate following.

At the tail-end of 2018, the company released an in-depth look into the augments, vehicles and co-op aspects of BGE2 among the sheer scale of their project.

It was the perfect follow-up for its E3 2018 cinematic trailer, then little else after that.

Industry insiders didn’t see 2021 going any different with high-level changes at Ubisoft likely impacting the company’s larger development processes, but that’s where the legendary game publisher could have taken the community by surprise.

Loyalists will still be craving any new information on Beyond Good and Evil 2, but will now set their sights on E3 2022 for some hope of any news on an eventual release.