Rayman co-creator Michel Ancel says he's leaving video games
Off to work with wildlife
Michel Ancel, the co-creator of Rayman and creative director of Beyond Good & Evil, today announced that he's stopping working on video games. The French designer started at Ubisoft when he was a teenager and, after over 30 years in the industry spent mostly at Ubi, says he wants to focus on his second passion, wildlife. Come for the announcement, stay for the video of a fox stealing brioche.
"Today is very special for me. After more than 30 years, I've decided to stop working on video games and fully focus on my second passion: Wild Life!" Ancel said in an Instragram post today. "My new project takes place in the real world and consists in a wild life open sanctuary dedicated to education, nature lovers and ... wild animals."
One such beastie featured in his announcement post:
Ancel had been working on two games for seemingly forever, and says they'll be fine without him. He was the director of Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil 2, while also working on a survival game named Wild at a studio he co-founded. BGE2 has been in the pipeline in one form or another for over a decade and Wild was announced in 2014.
"No worries, since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well," he said. "Beautiful things to be seen soon."
