15 Facts About Michel Ancel

Michel Ancel is best known for creating the Rayman franchise and was the lead designer or director for several of the games, including Rayman Origins and its sequel Rayman Legends.

Since then, Ancel had been drafting game concepts while learning to program in his computer.

Michel Ancel joined Ubi Soft as a graphic artist after meeting the game author Nicolas Choukroun in Montpellier at the age of 17.

Michel Ancel designed the graphics of Choukroun's games such as The Intruder and Pick'n Pile before doing his first game as both programmer and graphic artist.

In spite of Ubisoft's reluctance to produce a sequel Beyond Good and Evil 2, Michel Ancel has expressed a clear wish to produce one in the future, which was officially announced at Ubidays 2008 event on 28 May 2008.

On 5 April 2006, Ubisoft announced that Michel Ancel was leading the development of the fourth game in the Rayman series, eventually known as Rayman Raving Rabbids, for Wii.

However, Michel Ancel was absent from the project after its E3 announcement, and made no public appearances regarding the game after the development team switched focus from a free-roaming platformer to the final party game format shortly after E3.

In 2010, Ubisoft announced Rayman Origins, first unveiled as an episodic video game designed by Michel Ancel and developed by a small team of five people, but it was announced that the project had been expanded into a full game.

In 2014, Michel Ancel announced he had formed an independent games studio called Wild Sheep.

In September 2020, Michel Ancel announced he was leaving the video game industry to spend time on a wildlife sanctuary.

Michel Ancel confirmed he was aware that he was being investigated but denied the accusations against him and called Liberations report about him "fake news".

In October 2024, Ubisoft announced in response to rumors that Ubisoft Montpellier and Ubisoft Milan had been working on a new Rayman project, with Michel Ancel returning to the company to consult on its development.

Michel Ancel is recognized as one of the best game designers in IGN's Top 100 Game Creators, ranking 24th out of 100.

Michel Ancel aims for a high degree of freedom in his games.

Michel Ancel is critical of games that claim to offer freedom, but present limits or invisible boundaries where players do not expect them.