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Michel AncelFrench game designer
Date of Birth: 29.03.1972
Country:  France |
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Biography of Michel Ancel
Michel Ancel is a French game designer who works at the video game company Ubisoft. He is best known as the creator of the "Rayman" series, where he served as the lead game designer for the first two games as well as the most recent one, "Rayman Origins". Ancel is also recognized for his work on the cult classic game "Beyond Good & Evil" and the video game adaptation of Peter Jackson's "King Kong".
Early Life and Career
Michel Ancel developed his passion for game design at the age of seventeen when he met Nicolas Choukroun in Montpellier, France. He joined Ubisoft as an artist and worked on graphics for games developed by Choukroun, such as "The Intruder" and "Pick'n Pile". Ancel later became both an artist and a programmer, creating his first game "Brain Blaster", which Ubisoft released in 1990.
Rayman and Other Projects
In 1992, Ancel began working on "Rayman", his debut as a lead game designer. The game was released for the Atari Jaguar in 1995 and for PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1996. Ancel was also involved in the development of "Rayman 2: The Great Escape", but only served as a consultant for "Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc". Despite praising the development team of "Rayman 3", Ancel expressed that he would have done things differently.
In 2003, Ancel created "Beyond Good & Evil", which received critical acclaim but did not perform well commercially. However, director Peter Jackson admired the game and decided to entrust Ancel with the development of the video game adaptation of "King Kong" after being dissatisfied with another company's handling of the "Lord of the Rings" license. Despite Ubisoft's reluctance to release a sequel to "Beyond Good & Evil", Ancel expressed his desire to begin its development in the future. He confirmed this in an interview with "Nintendo Power" magazine, stating that he is working on a new project that is significant to him.
Later Career
In March 2008, Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed that Michel Ancel was working on several unannounced projects. Ancel revealed in an interview with the French gaming magazine "JeuxVidéo" that a sequel to "Beyond Good & Evil" was in pre-production with a small development team already working on it for about a year, awaiting confirmation from Ubisoft to start full development. "Beyond Good & Evil 2" was officially announced on March 28, 2008. Ancel further revealed at "Video Games Live" in Paris on December 18, 2008, that the game had been in development for a year and a half, and his team had full creative freedom to make the game they envisioned.
In 2010, Ubisoft announced "Rayman Origins", which was also developed by Michel Ancel. The development team consisted of only five people, and the game utilized the UBlart Framework, a development platform created by Ubisoft Montpellier and Ancel. The engine was adapted for HD and could run at resolutions up to 1920x1080 and 60 frames per second. Ancel's main goal as a developer is to provide players with maximum freedom, criticizing games that claim to offer freedom but impose restrictions where players least expect them.
Ancel challenges the common belief that French video games are more original, stating that the issue lies not in development but in American publishers being too risk-averse. He believes that they are afraid to take chances and innovate in the industry.
