Beyond Good and Evil 2 demo shows off Michel Ancel's huge and ambitious sci-fi opus

Ubisoft has released the first in-game footage from its anticipated sci-fi sequel Beyond Good and Evil 2, showing off a huge and ambitious adventure. The footage is accompanied by project lead Michel Ancel walking viewers through what to expect.

The demo begins in front of the enormous statue seen in the E3 2017 reveal trailer (above), and two large spaceships in front of it. As Knox, the swearing ape character from the trailer, Ancel flies between the ships to the top of the statue to show off the game's scale.

Ancel stresses that this is early footage from the title, and that in the full game, players will be able to customise the appearance of their character.

He stands Knox on top of the statue, then zooms the camera out to show his size in relation to the statue, the statue's size in relation to the city of Ganesha around it, and then Ancel takes things further, out of the planet's atmosphere.

Ancel continues, showing the planet is rather small compared to another nearby, and that both planets are just two in a solar system, revolving a sun that creates the game's lighting depending on where the player is and the atmosphere of the planet they're on.

Not long after we see what it's like to pilot a small ship, showing off the speed it's possible to reach, the ability to drift and leaving the planet's atmosphere to explore the surrounding galaxy.

Ancel goes into great detail about the game in the video embedded below, including how real-time asteroids will fall and shape planets in the system. He promises future videos will continue to keep fans up-to-date.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 was first revealed in 2008, with a screenshot and trailer following later that year. All went quiet save for a leaked trailer the next year and a steady stream of rumours keeping hopes for the game alive.

It returned in its new guise at Ubisoft's E3 2017 media briefing as the show's surprising finale. It's early days for Ancel's title however, due to the sweeping changes to what the game will be.

It's now a prequel, rather than the straight-forward sequel once planned, meaning the original game's protagonist Jade won't feature. This is probably for the best given how long it's been since 2003's cult classic and how few people actually played it.