Despite being announced quite a few years ago, Beyond Good & Evil 2 seems to be just as distant as it ever was. And with Michel Ancel, the man behind the whole series, now leaving the gaming industry, this naturally brought up a fair few concerns about the fate of Beyond Good & Evil 2.

In order to dispel these concerns, as well as let everyone know what's happening, Ubisoft has now released a brief development update. You can find the whole thing over at the Ubisoft website, but for now, here are the most interesting bits:

"As Michel noted, he hasn’t been directly involved in BG&E2 for some time now, as the team have been hard at work building on top of the solid creative foundation he helped shape," reads the official blog. "The team’s collective strength has us well on our way to developing a flagship next-generation action-adventure game."

"We recently passed an important internal milestone, delivering a build that proves our Space Pirate Fantasy and offers hours of gameplay and an incredible level of freedom in a seamless online sandbox, building upon the promise of our tech demos shown at E3. I’m incredibly proud of the team’s perseverance, dedication to each other and ongoing commitment to developing an amazing game."

"We still have a lot more to do to, and we’re ramping up the size of the team to help. We recently added Ubisoft Paris as a partner studio, and in the past six months many new people have joined us here in Ubisoft Montpellier. If you’re interested in being part of the team, visit our careers site and search for keyword “Beyond Good & Evil 2.”"

"Next milestone: We are aiming to share more and show you the game in action sometime next year, once we pass our next internal production milestones."

Or in short, the work on Beyond Good & Evil 2 is not only going pretty well, but the team is also being greatly expanded. So while we won't get to see any actual gameplay for quite a few months, it is at least good to hear that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still on its way, even if it's traveling via snail-drawn carriage.

Once next year's update arrives I'll make sure to let you know, but until then I'll leave you with the original demo, just for good measure. Enjoy!