The 15-year journey of "Beyond Good and Evil 2" has passed another milestone. It has been in development longer than "Duke Nukem Forever" and holds the Guinness World Record for "Longest Development Time for a Video Game" (probably not long enough).

Well, actually, BG&E2 officially crossed that threshold about 100 days ago, so it only took this long for us to notice, but as GamesIndustry.biz editor Brendan Sinclair (opens in new tab) originally noted, " The arduous labor that brought "Duke Nukem Forever" to the world lasted 5,156 days; the first trailer for BG&E 2 (opens in new tab) was released on May 30, 2008: 5,239 days ago. When this trailer was released, the game had already been in development for about a year, which means that much more time had actually passed.

Several people have pointed out that the original description and trailer for BG&E 2 bears little resemblance to the version of the game released at E3 2018 (opens in new tab), suggesting that the Duke Nukem comparison may be unfair. Frankly, a quick glance through the wide variety of trailers for Duke Nukem Forever (opens in new tab) that have been released over the years shows that the game has continued to change in size, scope, and staffing; it bears no resemblance to the 2011 Duke Nukem release, which was not even close to the un I even saw a build of the release (open in new tab) earlier this year. For me, I think the comparison is a fair one.

A dubious honor to say the least. Ubisoft surprisingly (opens in new tab) continues to insist that the game is still in production, and it was only two months ago that BG&E 2 added a new lead writer (opens in new tab). Still, 15 years later, and now that the series' creator has left Ubisoft (if you can call it a series) amid accusations of harmful mismanagement (opens in new tab), it is very, very difficult to maintain an optimistic view of the game, even for an enthusiastic nostalgist like myself.

I do believe that someday a game with "Beyond Good and Evil" in the title will be released, but by then I may be an old man. Until then, I'll sit back and wait for the BG&E movie Netflix released two years ago (opens in new tab) and reflect on my rosy childhood memories of roaming the waters of the Hillys (opens in new tab).