WiLD PS4 PlayStation 4 1

Let’s not beat around the bush: WiLD looked incredible. The ambitious open worlder helmed by Michel Ancel and his Wild Sheep Studio was announced as a PlayStation 4 exclusive eons ago, but with the Rayman maker retiring from games and development seemingly stalling for an entire generation, word is that it no longer exists.

First, let’s get to the source: the rumour comes courtesy of chatty Venture Beat scribe Jeff Grubb, speaking as part of his latest Giant Bomb podcast. The video’s currently behind a paywall, but VGC quotes the alleged industry insider as claiming that the game is “dead”. He said: “The project got shut down. The team that was working on it was looking at maybe trying to stay together and work on other projects.”

The game was first announced at Gamescom in 2014, where it won our Game of the Show award, as voted by you. A fascinating gameplay demo – including a giant naked snake lady – followed a year later at Paris Games Week, but updates have been sparse since then. This always looked expensive and ambitious, so without Ancel’s vision, it’s hardly a surprise to learn the project may have been scrapped.

We’ll try and follow up with Sony to see if we can get confirmation of the project’s status, and we’ll update if we get a response.

[source giantbomb.com, via videogameschronicle.com]