Rayman makes some surprising cameos in Beyond Good & Evil’s remaster

By Tomas Franzese June 25, 2024 9:00AM

Key art of a Rayman game from Ubisoft. — Ubisoft

Beyond Good & Evil — 20th Anniversary Edition‘s reveal caught the attention of many Rayman fans last week because an image of the Ubisoft mascot was in part of its reveal trailer. After going hands-on with Beyond Good & Evil — 20th Anniversary Edition, I can confirm that Rayman was teased because the franchise is referenced several times in its Anniversary Gallery, a neat feature hidden behind a couple of menus.

In the Anniversary Gallery, players can learn more about the development of Beyond Good & Evil. Rayman is obviously referenced at the start of that journey, as the team led by Michel Ancel that made Rayman 2 decided to move onto what would become Beyond Good & Evil as its next project. The Anniversary Edition also shows that the Rayman’s Training animated short was a placeholder asset in Jade’s lighthouse during development. To see more Rayman content, navigate to the Secret Stuff part of the Anniversary Gallery, and then choose the “Rayman in my BG&E?” gallery.

This gallery shows that an upside-down model of Rayman was hidden in a cave on Hillys during development, with a 2002 design document proposing the character be one of the rarest animals to photograph. More importantly, this gallery confirms that Ubisoft Montpellier remade a level from Rayman 2 in the JADE Engine, which would go on to power Beyond Good & Evil, to show off some of its capabilities. While this tech demo isn’t playable, some grainy footage remains and is included as part of the Anniversary Gallery.

A Rayman JADE Engine prototype. — Ubisoft

Ubisoft has mostly ignored Rayman for years, relegating the character to guest appearances in things like Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope DLC and the Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix show on Netflix. As such, it’s nice to see him more explicitly referenced in the gallery of Beyond Good & Evil — 20th Anniversary Edition. Hopefully, the original Rayman trilogy can one day get the same remaster treatment Beyond Good & Evil got here.

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Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

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