This long rumored Super Mario and Rabbids crossover became one of the quirkiest E3 highlights, as it has at last been revealed to the public by Shigeru Miyamoto who took to the stage at Ubisoft’s E3 show. And to be frank, it’s been met with mixed impressions by gamers.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is a strategy RPG with a focus on exploration and turn based tactical combat very much reminiscent of Firaxis Games’ Xcom titles (and this news is sure to please strategy fans). It’s published by Ubisoft and developed by Ubisoft Paris and Ubisoft Milan. Powered by Ubisoft’s own proprietary Snowdrop engine, the visuals are fantastic with a very Pixar look.
The game originated back in 2014 as a concept pitch from Ubi Milan’s creative director Davide Soliani when he approached Miyamoto to let his team work on a Mario game. And thus, Mario + Rabbids emerged.
Despite not being a fan of the Rabbids (who are annoying rabbit-like creatures from the Rayman universe), I’m open to this game’s concept as it’s great example of what third party devs can do with a first party intellectual property. However, many other people are still not satisfied even with tons of gameplay footage, and the Rabbids are the main ingredient of that problem; they’re always been a lesser part of the Rayman franchise, and to see them getting a larger role than Rayman himself is understandably disappointing. Plus the cringey nature of these critters doesn’t really help either (as they’re largely considered a marketing tool to appeal to kids). I personally think it looks silly yet cool; in my opinion, people should keep aside their bias and pick this game up for a unique experience. It releases on August 29 of this year, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Watch the reveal trailer below and let us know your thoughts on this game: