Beyond Good and Evil 2’s Creative Director Emile Morel has passed away

Emile Morel, a game designer and the Creative Director for Beyond Good and Evil 2, has died suddenly at age 40, just months after being promoted from the role of the project’s Associate Creative Director.

The details:

• As reported by IGN, two former colleagues of Morel have paid tribute to the Ubisoft Montpellier developer on their LinkedIn pages. "Even through the most difficult times, you always remained the caring and supportive person you were with your beautiful positive mind," Greg Hermittant wrote. "But the most important is the wonderful moments we had. With no doubts, Rayman Legends is my best memory." M. Gabrielle Shrager said Morel was "very proud of Beyond Good and Evil 2, the Space Monkeys, and his teammates," and wishes for the game to be "shipped in his name." Ubisoft has yet to comment on the situation.
• According to his LinkedIn page, Morel began working for the publisher in 2009 as a Senior Game Designer on Rayman Legends before becoming the Associate Creative Director on Beyond Good and Evil 2. Following the departure of the project's original Creative Director, Jean-Marc Geffroy, earlier this year, Morel stepped into the role amid labor investigations at the Montpellier studio, where the game has been stuck in "development hell" since its teaser was released over 15 years ago.
• Despite being officially revealed in 2017, the game was still in pre-production as of February 2022, as the team had failed to "nail down a creative vision that is both fun and achievable." It was originally planned to be an open-world title with customizable ships and online multiplayer in which players could move from space to city streets seamlessly.

More Ubisoft news:

• The Division 2 development team has announced that those who exploited an XP glitch in the game's Descent mode would face temporary bans, which would then become permanent if the exploits continued. For those caught using the bug, all illegitimately gained progress will be reversed.
• Ubisoft now has 11 Assassin's Creed projects in various stages of development or planned for the near future across multiple studios. The games are a mix of single-player and multiplayer experiences, with a remake of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag also rumored.