One of the things that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle did well was to make gamers like the Rabbids again. When the Rabbids first appeared in the Rayman games for the Wii, fans weren’t expecting them to take off. But Ubisoft had a lot of love for them, so they kept appearing, and fans got more annoyed with each arrival. However, the collaboration with Nintendo shined a new light on them and made them both enjoyable and valuable. Fast forward to now, and the upcoming Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope aims to improve the Rabbids even more. The team started this by making a Rabbid character that was unlike any they had seen before. Her name is Edge.
Edge was revealed in the very first trailer for the game, and fans have wanted to know more ever since. In a special interview, the team talked about the process of making Edge for the game, and their thought process behind her creation is quite interesting.
One of the first things they noted is that they wanted Edge to be a Rabbid that didn’t have a connection to other Nintendo characters like all the other hero Rabbids are. In addition, they wanted Edge to be 100% unique. Not to mention, she breaks the stigma of the Rabbids in terms of looks and personality:
“Usually, people think of Rabbids as funny and goofy, so Edge is something more unexpected,” said Animation Director Marco Renso.
Indeed, Edge comes off as tough, powerful, and not one to crack a joke just because she can. Her overall look is striking and even androgynous. Some people thought Edge was a male Rabbid until Ubisoft made it clear who she was. What’s funny about that is the team refers to her as the “female Clint Eastwood.” Even going so far as to note that she doesn’t talk much and has two expressions, one with her sword and one without it. She’s definitely the cool member of the team.
Just as interesting, the Ubisoft team had to make an entirely new rigging system just for Edge so they could show off her small expressions and showcase her personality. Adding to that, all the main Rabbids have a deep rigging system so they can show off various looks and emotions.
Keeping on with the Rabbids as a whole, you’ll see in Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope that the Ubisoft creatures are much more talkative than before. That’s due to the deeper plot, and the team had to adjust their language to make it all work.
Audio Director Romain Brillaud spoke on this by discussing their new hybrid language system, “They’re changing, and their language needed to expand as well to inject new feelings from them, and this is something that eventually became too hard without wording.”
So yeah, the Rabbids are more profound and unique than ever before, making the wait for October 20th even harder to endure.
Source: Ubisoft
