Beyond Good & Evil 2 was a very pleasant surprise at E3 this year, but all we really saw was a well designed trailer designed to get fans excited that the game was actually coming. Well, hold on to your seats, folks, there is some actual game play available for viewing.

Granted, it was behind the scenes at E3, but Ubisoft got creative director Michel Ancel on video showing off the Voyager engine used to run the game. He also showed off some basics, including the mother ship base for players, a Russian nesting doll functionality for other ships that can be based in the mothership, as well as some extra details on what players can expect when they jump into System 3 as a novice space pirate.

One aspect of the original that will be returning is the ability to take pictures of what is going on in the game, and use those to show other characters as evidence of what you have seen. These can in turn trigger discussions that could lead to quests or other events. The information can not only be shared with NPCs, but with other players as well.

Ancel also showed off the scale in the game. He used the monkey character in a jetpack as a base, showing it in comparison to a smaller 20-meter spaceship, the larger 400 meter mother ship, and then next to a massive 700-meter tall mystical elephant statue. He then zoomed out even further to show the statue against the backdrop of the city, and then the continent as a whole, showing the massive scale with which the engine will render the game. Unfortunately, it isn't yet clear how far you will be able to zoom in or out when the game is actually released. The good thing is that the engine seems to handle the rendering seamlessly.

He then goes in to show off the maneuverability and capabilities of the smaller ship, described as a dogfighter, both planetside and in space. He also described some of the physics involved and how it impacts speed in atmosphere and in space.

The tech demo was rather impressive and should make fans even more excited that there is already something that is somewhat playable, and not just a fancy trailer.

Check out the full video below.