It’s been rumored for months now that Ubisoft is developing a Mario and Rabbids RPG crossover. This sounds like one of the most strangest collaborations out there but for a while we haven’t heard much about it until this past week.  Emily Rogers has been posting some new info about the game on her website.
 

Question: Wait, are the rumors about a Rabbids x Mario crossover actually true?
As I wrote in a previous blog post, the official title is “Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle”. The aesthetics and art style remind me a tiny bit of Super Mario 3D World. It has colorful graphics, and it has humor that you wouldn’t typically see in a traditional Mario game.
Here’s why I’m expecting this game to be good.

1. Ubisoft wants Mario + Rabbids to grow into a successful franchise. But it can’t become a respectable franchise unless Kingdom Battle is well-received by both critics and fans.
2. The reputation of the Mario brand is also at stake. Nintendo won’t let just any company develop and publish games based around Mario unless they’re confident in the team and the concept. Remember, this is the same Nintendo who rejected Vicarious Vision’s proposals to add Princess Peach, Kirby, and Star Fox in Skylanders.

Here’s my theory on why this Mario + Rabbids game even exists.
With casual gamers abandoning consoles for mobile devices, Ubisoft was quickly running out of ways to keep the Rabbids brand relevant. Rabbids hasn’t been a relevant brand since the Wii and DS years (2006 – 2012).
Also, keep in mind that Rabbid games have declined in quality since 2009’s Rabbids Go Home (78 on Metacritic) and 2006’s Rayman Raving Rabbids (76 on Metacritic). For example, Rabbids Land received mixed reviews on Wii U (52 on Metacritic). Rabbids Travel in Time also received mixed reviews on the Nintendo 3DS (55 on Metacritic).
How do you re-energize a brand that is slowly fading away into irrelevance? By attaching the Rabbids brand to an even stronger brand: Super Mario.
If you glance over at Nintendo’s history, they worked on a crossover franchise with Sega called Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. Sega is the publisher of that series. Nintendo has also worked on a crossover game with Atlus called Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. So it was only a matter of time until Nintendo collaborated with Ubisoft, one of their most loyal partners, on a crossover game.

Question: Were you joking on Twitter when you said Princess Peach has a gun in the heavily rumored Rabbids game?
They’re not realistic guns, they don’t shoot bullets. They are sci-fi cartoonish guns that shoot lasers, energy beams, and things of that nature. Characters can even have arm cannons ala Mega Man/Metroid. The game isn’t trying to be edgy like Shadow the Hedgehog. It’s meant to be super wacky in a cartoonish Looney-Tunes sort of way.
As I mentioned yesterday, the art style and aesthetics are similar to Super Mario 3D World but more detailed.

Question: Is there anything new that you can tell us about the Mario x Rabbids crossover?
The playable characters in “Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle” don’t look anything like the plastic figures in the picture below.

Question: Can you give us more info on the Rabbids game?
I’ll throw you guys one LAST bone.
“Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle” has eight playable characters — including Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi — and they each have their own sci-fi weapons, laser guns, arm cannons, etc. But you don’t control the characters — you control Tuttorio, a small floating dish, to guide them through the worlds. There is also co-op multiplayer.

At first when I heard about the idea of these two franchises crossing over I thought it was a terrible idea since I’ve grown tired of the Rabbids and didn’t want to see them anywhere near Mario & co. Now all the information that we’ve gotten has caught my attention and I actually want to see more of this game. It’s so crazy and wacky that it just seems like kinda thing the Mario series needs along with Odyssey after playing it safe for the last few years.
Plus does this idea really seem too out there? May I remind you that one of the most popular RPG franchises is a crossover with Disney and Square Enix characters. Or how about the fact that one of the most anticipated games of the year is a fighting game with Marvel and Capcom characters. It just seems like anything is possible. Oh well E3 is around the corner and I’m positive that we’ll be seeing this at Nintendo’s presentation.
 
Link to Emily’s site: https://arcadegirl64.wordpress.com