Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle captivated us when we first saw it at Ubisoft’s E3 press conference. The XCOM-ish tactical mechanic is familiar to every player who loves the genre. What also makes it great is the fact that Ubisoft and Nintendo are closely working together to create a world where Mario and the Rabbids coexist.
One thing is for sure, Nintendo has the knack of giving a lot of freedom when it comes to developing games, which Andrea Babich, the Lead Narrative Designer at Ubisoft, experienced it firsthand. Andrea was happy that Nintendo allowed them to try and mix things up – he told WeWriteThings in an interview.
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“We worked closely with Nintendo to find the right balance. We never really thought in terms of quantity or percentage. The strong idea at the basis was to have the Rabbids break into the Mushroom Kingdom and having them playing around, even spoofing the super-iconic elements created by Nintendo. The cool thing, in my opinion, is that Nintendo always encouraged us to try and mix up things.
They encouraged us to be irreverent, so to say. It was then a matter of finding the funniest tuning for the jokes, the spoofs and the parodies. But it’s not just a matter of funny moments: there is a real plot developing as you progress – and that’s where the unexpected encounter between Mario and friends and the Rabbids has an even bigger chance to shine.“[/alert]
Andrea assures diehard fans of Mario that it is still the same “Mario experience” and easily accessible for all the players. In addition, the game will also be easy for new players in the genre to get used to and understand its mechanics.
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“Still, a true Mario experience, no matter the gameplay, must stay accessible. We tried our best to follow the classic ‘easy to pick up, hard to master’ philosophy. You won’t be overloaded with stats and numbers but, at the same time, by combining the skills of the different Heroes you can really create your unique gaming style on the battlefield. We already saw players winning battles in ways we’d not expect and this is very thrilling for us as developers.“[/alert]
While we look at the gameplay videos shown, we can highly agree to Andrea about it being “easy to pickup”.
Reviews of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle will be out on August 28.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle launches this August 29 exclusive on Nintendo Switch.
Source: WeWriteThings
