Rumour: Nintendo Securing Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil Sequel As Nintendo NX Exclusive
Fans of Beyond Good & Evil may have to accept the lesser-of-two-evils in order to enjoy the goodness of a sequel. According to a reputable source, Nintendo is pulling a Bayonetta 2 with Ubisoft's long-delayed Beyond Good & Evil 2.
It seems Nintendo would like to have the IP as a major exclusive for their upcoming NX console. The source is 'Geno' who has let slip insider info before like new Pokemon and Microsoft's IllumiRoom. Geno recently spilled some interesting possible facts about the upcoming NX hardware and other decisions being made at Nintendo, which we covered in our recent profile of the Nintendo NX.
Destrucoid questioned a second source and they are confident there's enough crossover information to suggest that Nintendo really is pursuing Beyond Good & Evil 2 as an exclusive launch. It goes further and reveals an alleged project title 'Beyond Good and Evil: The Prejudices of Philosophers'. It's a nod to Friedrich Nietzsche's book Beyond Good and Evil and refers to a specific chapter that deals with authority and how it can alter morality and other such mind games.
Nintendo is trying to play the 'knight in shining project revival armour' again as they lure in fans with the promise of a game that otherwise may never see the light of day. Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil sequel has been in the limbo-to-end-all-limbos development wise, with nothing but a short conceptual teaser released way back when. Now it could finally happen at the cost of being a platform exclusive.
The trouble for Beyond Good & Evil was that it enjoyed critical success, and a cult following, but didn't perform well in sales. Another element to point out is that during a recent Devs Play segment for Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions, the name Shigeru Miyamoto kept being mentioned as Schafer played Beyond Good & Evil along with its creator Michel Ancel.
Nintendo's backing of Bayonetta 2 as a Wii U exclusive certainly paid off for the company as it achieved top critical acclaim and sold quite well, even breaking into the UK top 10 chart launch week. Will a Beyond Good & Evil sequel mobilise the masses for the NX? It won't hurt it much and it'll help play to Nintendo's strengths both as a big name IP from a third-party and being a colourful action adventure.
Recently there have been some rumblings from game studios that Nintendo has been 'too secretive' and not letting teams get a look at the software and hardware of the NX, but Bandai Namco is also said to have some titles in the works and if this rumour of Beyond Good & Evil 2 is true then the Nintendo NX shouldn't be short of a launch titles in-house of third-party in 2017 - or possibly holiday 2016.