As of this month, it’s been a whole 13 years since Rayman last had a mainline game, which was the near-masterful Rayman Legends. The limbless wonder’s future looked incredibly bright after what was easily his most successful outing, but fate had other, much less exciting plans. Instead of ushering in a new era for Rayman, Legends kickstarted a decade-plus slumber for everyone in the Glade of Dreams.
Over the past few years, Ubisoft has made it clear that Rayman’s long rest was finally coming to an end. The first sign of that was the charming Phantom Show DLC for Sparks of Hope, as well as a strange Captain Laserhawk appearance that most of us would rather not talk about. Following on from the 30th Anniversary remaster of the game that started it all, Ubisoft’s grand plan to revitalise the franchise is finally in full swing with Rayman Legends Retold, and the team behind it is just as excited as we are.
“It’s been many years without a new Rayman game,” brand producer Loic Gounon points out. “Even for us as developers, it’s a bit weird to be so far from the character. Just reconnecting with him and the world - three years ago, as we started the project, that was a really nice sentiment. Now, we are really enthusiastic, excited, and impatient to release it. Even though we announced a very small delay for additional polishing and to be as perfect as we can, we’re happy that we’re still hitting the Christmas period. That’s a game that should release at that time for kids and families, besides core fans. I hope they will be there too, but also to have kids and families possibly discovering Rayman for the very first time at Christmas is nice.”
The delay that Gounon is referencing here was announced early last week, with Retold being pushed from October 1 all the way back to December 3. It’s a pretty notable delay considering we were just a few weeks from launch and the game itself has already gone gold, but the statement suggested it was just for polishing reasons. Of course, most assumed that it was really to move Rayman outside of a month packed with games trying to avoid Grand Theft Auto 6.
“I won’t say we’re not looking at the market, but the very first reason is quality,” Gounon explains. “We know it’s a crazy period, whether it’s early September to the end of December, there’s a series of huge licenses and high-quality games. So we are aware. I’m not sure there is a safe period. Honestly, it’s just picking the right date for us to release where we can possibly shine. That’s part of the conversation, but we really needed those last six to eight weeks to have additional polish. For Rayman, love and care is really in the little details. There was no big reason for the delay, or it would be a longer delay - it’s really just the last touches and last round of polish instead of patching and finishing the game live.”
With Rayman’s impending but slightly delayed release out of the way, I wanted to take Gounon back a few steps to how Retold even came about in the first place. Rayman fans have been begging for his return for a long time, and now that it’s finally here after more than a decade without anything, everyone’s wondering what exactly changed at Ubisoft.
Gounon explained that the team looked at Ubisoft’s lineup and noticed that, with new Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, and Rainbow Six projects in the works, it was heavily leaning towards core gamers and more mature IP. Since “part of the DNA of Ubisoft is the variety in IP”, and the Montpellier team themselves were wondering why a new Rayman hadn’t been made in 13 years, conversations about his return started in earnest.
To be fair, Montpellier did spend a few years developing the wonderful Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, as well as working on the long-delayed Beyond Good & Evil 2.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/rayman-legends-retold-brand-producer-interview-exclusive/
