Michelle Ansel has announced that she has left the video game industry to focus fulltime on a wildlife sanctuary.
In Angel’s long 30-year career, she has seen Ubisoft create franchises such as Rayman, Rabids and Boyd Good and Evil.
By announcing his departure via Instagram, Ansell has confirmed that his two ongoing projects – Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Wild – will run without him.
“Today is a very special day for me,” Ansel wrote. “After more than 30 years, I decided to stop working on video games and focus on my second passion: wildlife!
“My new project takes place in the real world and it dedicates an open wildlife sanctuary to education, nature lovers and … wildlife.
“Many of you may want to know what will happen to Wild and BGE 2 No worries, the teams have been autonomous for many months and the projects are going great. Soon beautiful things will be seen soon.
“Let the fox be with you.
“🦊”
Ansel returned to Ubisoft in 1999. The Platforming franchise, best known for his work in the Raymond series, made a number of sequels over the years, when its uninterrupted protagonist became part of the Ubisoft mascot.
In 2003, Ansel and his Ubisoft Montpellier team took their most ambitious project out of the band Good and Evil, a sci-fi adventure that found the following loyal Sanskrit. Plans for the whole sequel have been in and out of development ever since.
Created by Ansel Rabbids, it is the Rayman spin-off that quickly turned into a standalone franchise with its own life. There are now more Rabids games than a TV series Rayman Song and there are plans for an upcoming movie.
Throughout his career, Ansel was considered the head and creator of the popular and charismatic studio. I will always remember Ansel’s interview at his studio wrapping party for the Ramen Legends – just to show him an excuse for it since his colleagues invited him to jam with the event band. And fair enough.
Ubisoft veteran, Ansel was given unusual freedom. Outside of Good and Evil 2 was an emotional project for him and his studios – and one that doesn’t seem too close to release now when it was recently released at E3 2017.
Meanwhile, Wild, Gamescom 2014 first announced An open world game where you can play as different animals, still apparently being developed by Ansel’s own Wild Shape studio, a collective creator decided to set it up and split Ubisoft Day. Time as well as work.
Ubisoft today released an update on the development of Beyond Good and Evil 2. In short, the game is still being made and has not been worked on by Ansel for some time. Oh, and don’t expect to see anything until next year.
“As he said via Instagram today, Michelle Ansel has decided to stop working on video games to focus on other personal projects, and she can no longer be part of the BG & E2 team,” wrote senior producer Guillaume Brunier. “Over the years, Michelle has introduced her creative vision and helped us remain faithful to BG&E’s incredible universe. Her uncompromising passion has forced us to redefine what was possible in the vast, multicultural and future world of science-fiction.” As we move forward, we are all committed to this vision.
“Michelle mentioned that she was not directly involved in BG and E2 for a while, because the team was hard at work on top of the strong creative foundation that helped build the team. The team’s combined strength has made the next generation of action much better along the way.” -Developing the Adventure Game recently We’ve recently crossed an important internal milestone, providing a build that proves our space pirate fantasy and offers hours of gameplay and an incredible level in a non-stop online sandbox. Shown team I am incredibly proud of the team’s perseverance, dedication to each other and continued commitment to developing an amazing game.
“Next Milestone: After we pass our next internal production milestone, we aim to share more with you sometime next year and show you the game in action. We know many of you are interested in hearing more from the team, getting more details of the story and the universe, And try the gameplay. We’re equally excited to share them with you, but we’ll take the time we need to get it right. We want to exceed our high expectations from you and we have our own.
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In a statement shared with Eurogamer, Ubisoft confirmed details of Ansel’s new wildlife sanctuary project and wished him well for the future:
“Today, Ubisoft announced that Michelle Ansel has chosen to leave the video game industry after an exceptional career spanning more than 30 years. Nature lover Michelle has long been working on a private project dedicated to wildlife conservation. And there is a desire to continue his full efforts for long-term passion.
“Michelle is the originator of some of Ubisoft’s most popular franchises in the video game industry, including Rayman, The Raving Rabbits and Bead Good and Evil, whose second opus, Beyond Good and Evil 2, is currently under development. Focusing on the main stage, they will be sharing more with their fan community in the coming months.
“We would like to thank Michelle for the incredible creative vision she has brought to Ubisoft during her career and wish her all the best for this new venture.”
