The 20 minutes of R4 talk in a nutshell.
- Rayman 4 was RRR's original name, BUT this project was only one of two separate ones as in 2005 Ubisoft Montpellier was busy making the King Kong game, that's why they weren't making R4 at that time and another Rayman 4 project was being made by Phoenix Interactive Entertainment.
- According to the story explained (the guy has a hard time putting it to words) Rayman was supposed to be in some kind of video game hero training camp where he could interact with video game heroes from other Ubisoft games such as the Prince and Jade (what?) and these characters are being controlled by actual people in the real world which also affects their personality (what?!). They are using Wreck It Ralph and Inside-Out as movie examples for the story description.
- The guy knows more about the supposed story of R4 which is not revealed in the podcast, but he plans to reveal it in the "nearish future".
- Dark Rayman was meant to be the main antagonist of the game, Mr. Dark wasn't meant to appear "in person" as he would have been portrayed "as a glitch, a corrupt part of the game" bent on taking revenge upon the video game heroes.
- The game was intended to be a reboot/retelling of Rayman, using reimagined versions of levels from the first two games, mainly the first one since it was in 2D.
- The gameplay was meant to designed to be kind of like Rayman 3: Not too hard to finish the game itself.
- PS2, PC, Xbox and GC were the target platforms. In 2005. This fact may had been one of the reasons why it was cancelled at the dawn of the 360/PS3 era.
- The game is referred to as "Rayman Generations", not as an exact title, but as a game which could have been somewhat similar to Sonic Generations.
- Ubisoft got scared after Nintendo revealed the Wii, they were unsure about whether they should or shouldn't develop this game for it, or to hardware they were more familiar with, but was becoming outdated.
- After the King Kong game was finished, Ubi received one of the first Wii dev kits while Phoenix's Rayman 4 was still in development. Development of RRR began around this time. Ubi cancelled Phoenix's R4 project which hit them hard, because this was their biggest contract and project to date (back then of course). There was also another project which they did for Ubi, that was cancelled as well which ultimately lead to their financial demise.
- There IS a working prototype of Rayman 4. It is very barebones, but it is working. The guy is planning to release an actual gameplay video of this prototype "pretty soon".
- Concept arts of Rayman, Dark Rayman and some transformations are mentioned.
- Michel's video where he's attacked by the Rabbids is mentioned as well.
- Zombie U was meant to be a Rabbids game in which Rayman was fighting extremely violent Rabbids in London (what?). Basically Rabbids instead of zombies and Rayman being the protagonist. Rayman blowing Rabbid heads off is mentioned, which Ubi found way too violent (what a surprise).
I double checked the last thing and to my surprise IT'S TRUE! Wtf?! xD
That's all for now.
