At this point, I think most of us are sick of talking about Rayman Legends. The game was supposed to be out on the Wii U earlier this year, but here we are, waiting for the game to release on almost every platform under the sun this fall. It’s been a strange, frustrating story, but Ubisoft feels it had good reason to make all of these moves.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot spoke with VentureBeat about Legends’ strange journey to the market. Since Guillemot believes that the work the Rayman creators are doing truly strong, he didn’t want the team to launch a critically acclaimed game without anyone actually buying it.
“What happened was that we saw the Wii U was not going to sell enough of those games. The game is going to be fantastic, and we didn’t want those creators to wind up in a position where even after making a fantastic game, they didn’t sell well enough,” he said. “We decided that we had to come out on enough machines that players can try it out on any one that they have, and give more time to both improve the game on the Wii U and create versions for the other consoles.”
This extra time has allowed Ubisoft to add new levels to the platformer, as well as confirm a PlayStation Vita version of the game. To Guillemot, the delay has been worth it.
“I think it was the right decision for gamers and for the team. My role is to make sure that the team is happy with the quality of the work they do and the reach they can have. The quality is there now, because they had more time” Guillemot said. “They’ve expanded the possibilities of the game. It’s much bigger content-wise. We have new bosses in key levels and so on. The experience is much more complete. I think it will be one of the best games we’ve ever done.”
It’s almost here. Rayman Legends will be released August 30 in Europe, and September 3 in North America.