If you were in charge of the rayman franchise...

[PluMGMK]

Ah yes, I did find it strange to hear you were taking on yet another project! Well, the trailer was still a fine piece of work, and you made us all smile anyway!

[Giant Chicken]

We probably won't finish it unfortunately, we're all busy with other projects. But it was insanely fun to work on this for April Fools, and I might try and finish my Picture City level eventually

Thats a shame, but it makes sence considering it was an April fools prank. If it ever is finished, I would definitely 100% it. The trailer is still very neat.

[Hunchman801]

Now open world is genuinely interesting. Rayman has always felt like a small fish in a big pond, so being able to expand on that with vast environments would be ideal. I can imagine just wandering from the woods of light and finding the fairy council, and maybe the further in you go, the more whimsical things get, just like in your mind when you fall into REM sleep! You start to see scatterings of cream and candies among the grass and it opens to a fully 3D Candy Chateau. The entirety of the open world would need to wow the player with a consistent weirdness, though. That way they never feel like they quite step out of a dream.

I'd never thought of that before, but I agree that incorporating the dream element would be a wonderful way to somehow bring back the surrealist environments of the original game. It probably wouldn't be so easy to convert them to 3D from a game design point of view, but I still have hope it could become more than the few pieces of artwork for Phoenix's canceled Rayman 4!

[SilverLum]

I'd never thought of that before, but I agree that incorporating the dream element would be a wonderful way to somehow bring back the surrealist environments of the original game. It probably wouldn't be so easy to convert them to 3D from a game design point of view, but I still have hope it could become more than the few pieces of artwork for Phoenix's canceled Rayman 4!

D'accord! I always preferred Phoenix's vision for Rayman 4, as it would have tied the trilogy together perfectly and would have made Rayman 1 seem like less of an outlier. We need more whimsy in Rayman again. And, PLEASE, Ubisoft, some continuity!

[DaveRattlehead]

I'm also one of those who like the Phoenix approach more than the Rabbids one. The “fantastical” setting fits more, certainly, and would serve as a great reference to the first game.

Also... What kind of links would you establish between the zones of 1 and the zones of 2/3? I mean, what shortcuts would you put between zones? A shortcut, for example, like the one between the Fairy Glade and the Echoing Caves.

[Greengoop]

I don’t get what the fascination with the RRR prototype was. It would’ve just ended up as a trash game that the community would use as a laughing stock (kinda like RTAS is now)

[The Jonster]

Wow, this is the least optimistic Greengoop quote I've seen yet!

We probably won't finish it unfortunately, we're all busy with other projects. But it was insanely fun to work on this for April Fools, and I might try and finish my Picture City level eventually

I missed reading this, but that's too bad. Understandable though. I'm probably one of those few people in the minority (i guess Plum would be one too) who actually liked the game, so that really would have been interesting.

Now open world is genuinely interesting. Rayman has always felt like a small fish in a big pond, so being able to expand on that with vast environments would be ideal. I can imagine just wandering from the woods of light and finding the fairy council, and maybe the further in you go, the more whimsical things get, just like in your mind when you fall into REM sleep! You start to see scatterings of cream and candies among the grass and it opens to a fully 3D Candy Chateau. The entirety of the open world would need to wow the player with a consistent weirdness, though. That way they never feel like they quite step out of a dream.

I wouldn't mind if there was another dive towards this kind of idea when it comes to Rayman. I have to admit, I feel like Rayman 1 or the Ubiart games would be good choices to try this kind of idea out on. Rayman Revolution was.....something unique, at any rate!

[Adsolution]

I don’t get what the fascination with the RRR prototype was. It would’ve just ended up as a trash game that the community would use as a laughing stock (kinda like RTAS is now)

If you grew up back when RRR was first announced you'd understand. I remember being 10 and seeing those first gameplay trailers om TV of him running through the forest and beating up people with motion controls... remember, this is well before ubisoft terminally eroded how people see open-world action games, and indie/fangames were nonexistent. We were far less cynical about video games back then, this prototype lit up people's imagination.

Finally being able to play what we saw in those early 2000's ads from our childhood is beyond insane.

[Greengoop]

I’m aware of that, but hype doesn’t necessarily lead to a good game. Just take the Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson fight for comparison

[Adsolution]

Yeah, but again, those are cynical (and unfortunately more educated) 2024 sensibilities. That doesn't change how cool it is to finally be able to play the game we only ever saw brief clips of in blurry ads from 20 years ago, even if it's just a prototype that clearly had little direction in mind before it was abandoned.

Even with the RTAS comparison, yeah sure it's everywhere and run dry now, but I remembered hearing about a rayman animated series when I was really young, but there was no way to find or watch it, it was this legendary thing. Then when youtube first came around, someone uploaded it, and I finally got to watch it. That was one of the coolest moments ever.

[Greengoop]

Yeah, I find it really cool that it’s now proportionally playable, but it doesn’t seem like it would’ve been much fun at all if it was finished and actually released. Plus, its cancellation led to the 2 best rayman games ever released

[Adsolution]

yup, Raving Rabbids 2 is the best Ubiart game

[Greengoop]

See? NOW you get it!

[PluMGMK]

Yeah, I find it really cool that it’s now proportionally playable, but it doesn’t seem like it would’ve been much fun at all if it was finished and actually released. Plus, its cancellation led to the 2 best rayman games ever released

RRR and RRR2?

EDIT: Shoot, Ad beat me to it I'd better turn post review back on (when I get to it )

[Greengoop]

Of course not! I mean Rayman Kart and Rayman Legends Beatbox!

[The Jonster]

If you grew up back when RRR was first announced you'd understand. I remember being 10 and seeing those first gameplay trailers om TV of him running through the forest and beating up people with motion controls... remember, this is well before ubisoft terminally eroded how people see open-world action games, and indie/fangames were nonexistent. We were far less cynical about video games back then, this prototype lit up people's imagination.

Finally being able to play what we saw in those early 2000's ads from our childhood is beyond insane.

Unfortunately I dropped off from Rayman news after finishing Rayman 3 as a kid and by the time I did get into Rayman again (thank you Haruka's videos on Revolution), Origins was already out so I don't share the same sentiments as most people who learned about the prototypes or RTAS in the 2000s. Plus, it took me even longer to get both Origins and Legends (I had already joined RPC at this point) and learn about RTAS. Even today I still haven't gotten around to watching a single episode of the series despite saying so. I'm so bad at barking but not actually biting.

Still, it makes me curious to check these out whenever i have a lot of free time on my hands (i know with how much i post around here yall would think i do but i actually don't, i'm just not amazing at time management)

[Tribelle2026]

I would make a game that uses the Rayman Legends artstyle but in 3D like in the Rayman Legends trailer. It would have local and online multiplayer. I would include several worlds from Phoenix Interactive's cancelled Rayman 4 such as the Fortress of Sand, The Temporal Palace and Zoorigami along with brand new worlds. The playable characters would be Rayman, Globox, Barbara and teensies and costumes would return from the UbiArt games. This game would have a brand new villain. The game would be called Rayman Universe and would release on PS4, PS5, PC and Switch 1 and 2.

[Hunchman801]

Although it's very clear that the Phoenix project was never more than a few pieces of concept art and a couple mock-ups, I do like the vision they had for the future of the series, and I would like to see those ideas reused in a larger-scale project.