Wait, Will Beyond Good And Evil 2 Have A New Main Character?

A new concept image has surfaced for the perpetually in-development Beyond Good and Evil 2. The game seems like it's been stuck in development for ages, but a new image could reveal a new direction for the upcoming game... perhaps featuring a new main character?

The image was posted up over on the Instagram account of Michel Ancel, who has been slowly working on the game for Ubisoft. It's only slowly being progressed because Ancel is also working on the game Wild. So it appears that Beyond Good and Evil 2 is receiving some concept art while they finish up the other game.

The art itself appears to feature a guy with a pig on his soldier dressed in human clothes. The pig is looking up at a floating orb while the man focuses his attention on his project at the bench.

Some theories are that this could be a prequel to the first game, which is a possibility given that the pig on the guy's shoulder might be a young Pey'j, which is a much older character from the original Beyond Good and Evil. This would mean that this takes place many years before the first game and that the guy at the workbench could be an entirely new character to play.

If this is a new character to play in the Beyond Good and Evil franchise, he's a departure from the main character of the first game since he's much older than what you might expect from a protagonist in a whimsical fantasy-adventure game. The lead character in the first game was a young girl.

However, if you look at the way he's dressed and what he's equipped with, it's obvious that he's a mechanic. He's wearing the safety goggles and he has his hands wrapped. He's also decked out in overalls, which is not the kind of attire most video game characters wear when it comes to platforming and running around. That's not to say that no video game characters have worn overalls, but simply that it's not choice attire for platforming heroes. This does lend credence to the idea that the pig here could be a young Pey'j, as he was quite the grease monkey.

If you look closely at what he's working on, it appears as if he's at a workbench. He has two different sets of pliers in holsters attached to his sleeves on his right arm and what appears to be some sort of lock around his neck. If it is a lock then it seems like something that might end up being quest-oriented within Beyond Good and Evil 2.

As for what he's working on... there's a mortar and pestle where he's grinding up what could be some sort of powder or substance that could be used for crafting purposes. Usually, those are tools used for grinding up gunpowder.

You didn't use guns in the first Beyond Good and Evil, but that doesn't mean that there may not be some new kind of weapons to use in the sequel.

Based on the concept art and the details therein, it appears as if this guy and his little piglet friend could be an NPC mechanic or a resourceful NPC for creating gadgets, but it doesn't rule out the possibility that they could also be new playable characters. Typically, in most games, the overalls-wearing, gadget-making, tool-using characters are support characters that open up new possibilities for wearables or equipment. He seems to fit the profile trope to a 'T'.

Of course, this is just concept art and usually, concept art goes through many iterations before a final render is settled on. So if he did happen to be a playable character at some point in the sequel to Beyond Good and Evil, we might just be seeing one of the early renditions of how he might look with the art above.

Right now there's no release date set for Beyond Good and Evil 2 and we likely won't get concrete details until after the game Wild is released.