Beyond Good and Evil is a game from a different era - one where Ubisoft used to innovate and show its creativity with different genres, not following an established formula. It’s a game that many consider a cult masterpiece, but does a remaster do its dated design any justice? Beyond Good and Evil: 20th Anniversary Edition douses it with a pretty coat of paint, but whether its old-school charm will work on you depends on how your gaming tastes have evolved.
Beyond Good and Evil is set in the far future where you play as Jade, a young photojournalist who is whisked away into an adventure, working for various factions in a heated political climate. Jade is joined by the lovable and smart Pey’j, who will accompany you through most of the adventure.
BG&E is a classic action-adventure, with photography thrown in between. Progressing through the game’s story requires you to take pictures of the various monsters you’re hacking and slashing through. There’s also a decent amount of stealth involved, along with some fun traversal elements including a cool hovercraft used for navigating its semi-open world.
What brings BG&E together is its art style, culture, and music. We’re always concerned about a game’s art style being “ruined” by modern reimaginations, but that’s not the case here. Ubisoft has successfully updated the game without tinkering with core design aesthetics, although it does tend to be immersion-breaking in certain cutscenes. For example, Pey’j sits in the uncanny valley between realism and exaggerated animation.
The combat is also serviceable, but nothing more than that. Your only option is to hit enemies with your Daï-jo staff, and occasionally ask Pey’j for assists. Using him to lift enemies in the air, then throwing them off a platform, is fun. But the biggest issue with combat is how stiff it feels, and Jade’s dodging feels floaty. You could go through most of the combat encounters by just spamming the attack button.
What stood out to me in this playthrough of a 20-year-old game is the lack of hand-holding. Its hub-based traversal is a nice change of pace from the usual marker-filled open-world bullshit in modern games. However, I had the same problem here that I had in God of War Ragnarok - sometimes navigating and trying to find key items for interactions is tough because elements blend into the art of the game.
However, I like how most of the game’s in-world interactions are presented through a diegetic UI. Swapping through items on Jade and Pey’j is a little cumbersome, but it’s never a big problem. Sometimes I had problems trying to figure out where I needed to go when on a mission, but it was only a matter of trial and error. I would have liked to have seen more recorded voice lines for the NPCs too, as the text boxes pull me out of the game world and remind me that this is from a time when triple-A publishers couldn’t just spend $200 million on a video game.
Another thing I love about BG&E is its music. The African-European blend stands out from the crowd, giving the game a cool, authentic feel. The same goes for how characters talk, and there are plenty of characters to like here. They have something to say and exist as more than just stereotypical cardboard placeholders. The complex political narrative told within this vibrant sci-fi universe reminds me that Ubisoft could deliver satisfying storytelling without being caught up in chasing trends or appealing to the lowest common denominator.
There are tons of behind-the-scenes material present in the Anniversary Edition, and it’s a delight. Seeing the making of this game condensed into a bite-sized mini-doc’s worth of assets shows respect for the creators, and it reminds us of the immensely hard work that goes into creating a game like this. I wish more games include things like these and not just remasters.
Beyond Good & Evil Console Performance
I played the game on a PS5 where the game offers two modes - Performance and Resolution. Both of them target 60fps, and the differences between the two in image quality are minor. Sure, at 1440p the game doesn’t look quite as crisp, but for an older game I’m willing to tolerate a few frame drops if it gets me a sharp 4K image in Resolution mode. It also loads really fast, but the world is still divided into discrete zones that need to be streamed individually. Going from one section of the street to another brings up a loading screen for a few seconds is immersion-breaking, and some alternate form of loading, even a cool fade transition, would have been ideal.
Verdict
Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition is a great way to revisit this classic game, and it has been sufficiently upgraded for modern platforms. While there are some quality-of-life changes, they’re not enough to convert someone who wasn’t already a fan into one. However, if you’re exhausted from the state of modern, bloated video games, then the original BG&E should make for a sweet distraction.
Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch consoles. The game will also be available on the Ubisoft+ subscriptions service.
