Ubisoft and Nintendo had a successful collaboration with Mario + Rabbids. The development team behind the game is working on an undisclosed project.
Mario + Rabbids is one of the most unlikely crossovers and it just worked out perfectly well. The game was also quite successful for both Ubisoft and Nintendo. It sold more than 2 million copies on Nintendo Switch as of 2018. The last major update to the game was in the form of an expansion that added a new Donkey Kong world.
Ubisoft Milan is the development team behind Mario + Rabbids and they have been hiring for a new project since the completion of the Donkey Kong expansion, also known as Donkey Kong Adventure – Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. This was released back in 2018 while the base game was out in 2017.
The lead producer behind the game is Xavier Manzanares and he has been working on an unannounced project according to his Linkedin profile. This project has been in development since the release of the Donkey Kong expansion and it is approaching close to 3 years now.
The creative director behind Mario + Rabbids was Davide Soliani and there has been no update on his Linkedin profile since the release of the expansion. The same is true for the lead game designer, Damiano Moro, who was promoted to the role of game director on an unannounced project in September 2020.
While there is no indication that the development team at Ubisoft Milan have been working on a Rabbids sequel, there is usually an update to the Linkedin profile in case a project is delivered, and there have been quite a few games developed and published by Ubisoft since the release of Mario + Rabbids in 2017, or its expansion in 2018. The fact that these developers have not worked on a different project or the lead producer hasn’t announced his next project, could mean that they are working on a sequel to Mario + Rabbids.
To add some hint to Ubisoft Milan’s potential project, they have been recruiting for a prestigious AAA for a while now. One of the listings for the Character Animation post mentioned “creating high quality keyframe animations for bipeds and quadrupeds.” They also have Senior Environment Artist and Senior Character Artist position open that asks for experience in “managing polygon count and texture budgets.” This could mean less-powerful hardware is the target here e.g Nintendo Switch.
Another new tidbit is regarding the official Twitter account of Rabbids. Its Twitter name has changed to MarioRabbids even though the game launched back in 2017. The original website for Mario + Rabbids has also been relocated to the official Rabbids domain suggesting the developer is working on something for this collaboration. This has led to the speculation that a sequel could be announced this year.
