Michel Ancel's vision for Beyond Good and Evil

When Michel Ancel created Beyond Good and Evil back in 2003, it was warmly received by the media, but failed to make much of an impact with consumers.

With disappointing sales, the planned action-adventure trilogy was put on hold. Even though a sequel has been in development since 2006, it's only now being officially tagged as an "active" project for next generation consoles.

One of the original game's unique features was Jade, a strong, individualistic female protagonist. As gaming increasingly seeks more powerful female characters, Beyond Good and Evil consolidates its reputation as being a game ahead of its time.

In an interview with UbiBlog this week, as part of a promotional push for his new game Rayman Legends, Ancel looked back at Beyond Good and Evil's impact.

"When we started the project the first thing we said was, 'if this project is different it's because it's a female character who is driving the story,'" he said. "She's not like other characters who look like women but act like men. I'm not saying women don't shoot guns or defend themselves, it's just that most women in games are clichés. They are just one vision of the woman.

"We wanted to create this character and respect her," he added. "We said; this is our character, this is how she is. We are not going to modify her with our male fantasies. We tried as much as possible to make Jade her own entity and her own personality. It was one of the challenges of development."