Rumors about a sequel began to circulate around 2007, starting with a "Nintendo Power" interview with Ancel who stated he was working on a new project that was very personal to him, and mentioned his hopes to reuse Jade, the player-character from "Beyond Good & Evil", in a future project without changing her personality. Ancel said in a May 2008 interview with the French magazine that the "Beyond Good & Evil" sequel had been in pre-production for a year, but was yet to be approved by Ubisoft. Later that month, as part of their "Ubidays" event, Ubisoft released a trailer for the next, yet-named project from Ancel and their Ubisoft Montpellier studio, which had worked on "Beyond Good & Evil". The trailer used "Beyond Good & Evil" music assets and showed characters that appeared to be Jade and Pey'j from the original "Beyond Good & Evil". Ubisoft reported that the trailer had all been recorded within the game engine, showcasing high-resolution graphics representative of seventh generation consoles capabilities. A second, leaked trailer appeared for the game on the Internet around May 2009, showing a character that appeared to be Jade running through a crowded street. The trailer was confirmed to be authentic by Ancel, while Ubisoft denied that they had purposely released the footage.