Beyond Good & Evil is Ubisoft Montpellier's action-adventure about Jade, a photojournalist uncovering a conspiracy on the besieged planet Hillys.
Beyond Good & Evil is an action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft. Released in 2003, it follows Jade, a photographer and caretaker living on Hillys, as she joins an underground resistance movement and investigates the DomZ attacks and the Alpha Sections' official version of events.
The game combines exploration, melee combat, stealth, vehicle travel, puzzle solving, and photography. Jade uses her camera to document evidence, catalogue wildlife, and earn money, while her staff and companions help her move through hostile facilities and uncover new routes.
Progression moves between the lighthouse hub, Hillys' waterways, towns, races, and mission areas. Stealth sections ask players to observe patrols and security systems, while combat and hovercraft upgrades keep the adventure moving between investigative and action-driven sequences.
Beyond Good & Evil builds a bright science-fiction world around propaganda, surveillance, animal-like citizens, and a warm found-family tone. Its mix of photography, resistance storytelling, and compact world design gives the game a different texture from larger open-ended adventures of the same period.
The game earned strong critical attention despite modest commercial performance at release. It received D.I.C.E. nominations for animation, character or story development, music, and sound design, Game Developers Choice Awards nominations including Excellence in Game Design and Excellence in Writing, and later appeared on Slant Magazine's 2020 list of the 100 best video games.