PS4 Exclusive “Wild” Officially Canceled After Long Silence

Back in 2021, whispers began circulating about the possible cancellation of Ubisoft’s PS4 exclusive, Wild (or WiLD as it’s styled). Fast forward about three years, and we finally got confirmation from Steven ter Heide, the creative director at Wild Sheep Studio, that this ambitious project was indeed no longer in the works. Interestingly, the game’s original director, Michel Ancel, pointed fingers at Ubisoft’s mishandling as the culprit behind Wild’s demise. But then, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida offered his perspective on what really happened.

Shuhei Yoshida recently sat down with MinnMax, and Push Square covered the conversation, revealing more about the winding road Wild took during its development at Wild Sheep Studio. Yoshida spoke candidly, saying the vision for the game was “amazing.” However, it sadly never reached a completed state and ultimately got axed.

“We were teaming up with Michel Ancel and his crew over at Wild Sheep Studio on this project called Wild,” shared Yoshida. “The vision was groundbreaking. We collaborated with them for quite some time, but in the end, we had to pull the plug.”

Yoshida elaborated further, explaining that there were numerous great concepts that failed to solidify into a structured game. He mentioned the team’s free-spirited way of thinking and how one of the initial pitches included a map as vast as Europe.

Michel Ancel revisited the rocky journey of Wild in a December interview last year, describing its ending as rather unfortunate. “Wild met an unfortunate fate,” Ancel reminisced. “By 2018, we had a pretty impressive playable version, but the process to adapt it for PS5 dragged on, which slowed everything down. Meanwhile, major shifts were happening on Sony’s management level, and the game was halted.”

Later, Ubisoft picked up the project, coinciding with a period where Ancel felt the burn of it all. Following this, Ubisoft Paris took over, which Ancel described as being in “chaos.” He voiced strong criticism towards Ubisoft’s management, calling it a “real scandal.”

“I was no longer around to defend Wild,” Ancel expressed. “It was quite literally crushed by certain department members making demands for changes without even engaging with the game. It was outrageous. After two years of drifting aimlessly, the game was abandoned under the excuse that it no longer fit the original vision.”