We’ve been talking about Ubisoft a lot recently and for very honest and true reasons. If you recall, there was a rumor/report yesterday that the publisher disbanded the team behind its best 2024 title, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, due to it “not meeting sales expectations.” That broke a lot of people’s hearts, including the dev team, who wanted to do more on it, and further highlighted the terrible state that Ubisoft is in. However, while that canceled future is bad, there may be a small sliver of light in this darkness, and it revolves around Rayman. Yes, this is real.
According to Insider Gaming, the team that was just disbanded has been put into another game called “Project Steamboat,” which is allegedly a Rayman remake being headed up by Ubisoft Milan. If you didn’t know previously, Ubisoft Milan is the team that worked on the unique crossover titles featuring Mario and the Rabbids. Those two beloved games were hits on the Nintendo Switch and even featured some DLC with the Ubisoft icon to wrap things up. That DLC left many wondering whether the floating arms mascot would return for a solo title in the future. This is potentially our answer, even if it’s not the answer that many wanted.
The reason we say that is because, not unlike many other game developers, Ubisoft is working off the feel of “nostalgia” versus making something new. It should be noted that when they made a new game featuring Rayman over a decade ago, it was a huge hit and was stated to be one of the best platformers of the generation. In fact, it won awards and sold almost 4.5 million units as of 2019. Yet, Ubisoft never capitalized on it, which has been a recurring theme with them in recent years.
It also needs to be noted that Michel Ancel is apparently a part of the project, which is a problem because he has been known to be incredibly toxic in the workplace. While he is the character’s creator, that doesn’t give him a “pass” to come consult on this remake.
That brings us to another issue here, even if the remake does get finished, which is not a guarantee with Ubisoft involved, it might have unreasonable expectations put on it by the company. That is why, for all intents and purposes, the Mario/Rabbids crossover isn’t likely to get a third entry, even though the first one sold many millions, and the sequel sold over 3 million as 2024 started.
