One of my favorite videogame franchises is the Oddworld series—a fantastically smart, inventive, and fun series of games that, frankly, I thought were over, defunct, kaput, dead. (The Oddworld games are also beautiful—warranting, even, a book collecting the artwork from the series.) But yeah, a few years ago, the developer of the Oddworld games, Oddworld Inhabitants, basically shut their doors; nobody knew what was to become of them, but signs didn’t look good. (The most recent Oddworld game—the excellent but depressingly underrated Stranger’s Wrath—didn’t do too well, leading to Oddworld Inhabitants’ frustratingly vague closure/refocusing/whatever it was.)

But now we have the unexpected news that there’s a new Oddworld game happening, so all is right with the world.

And there’s more unexpected good news: A game that was similar to the Oddworld series in all the right ways (rampant creativity, an engaging story, well-conceived gameplay, a gorgeous art style) was Beyond Good & Evil—which, sadly, was also similar to Stranger’s Wrath in all the wrong ways (i.e., nobody played it). Those who did play Beyond Good & Evil loved it, though, and so all is even more right with the world with Ubisoft’s promise of Beyond Good and Evil 2.

I play games a lot, but I also find myself burning out on them fairly regularly—at times, it’s hard to maintain enthusiasm for gaming, thanks to a constant deluge of unneeded sequels and creepy war simulators and shameless rehashes. But every once in a while, clever, original stuff like Portal or Bioshock or Beyond Good & Evil or one of the Oddworld games will pop up and remind me just how vibrant and unique and potent games can be.

Teaser trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2 is below.