Michel Ancel

Michel Ancel is a French video game designer for Ubisoft known for creating Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil. Ancel's first title, Mechanic Warriors, was developed for software house Lankhor. Ancel then joined Ubisoft as a graphic artist at the age of 17, where he worked on the graphics of games such as The Intruder and The Teller. In 1992, he began to work on Rayman, his directorial debut. It was originally released in 1995 for the Atari Jaguar, and in 1996 for PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Ancel was also heavily involved in the development of Rayman 2: The Great Escape, but had only an advisory role on Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc. Although he praised its development team, he claims he would have "made the game differently". In 2003, he created Beyond Good & Evil, which garnered critical acclaim and a cult following, but was a commercial failure. However, film director Peter Jackson's admiration of the game — and his frustration with EA's handling of the The Lord of the Rings... full article at wikipedia