Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, how a successful video game is born

“When we made the first installment of Mario + Rabbids, we were pretty much unknown. Few believed in what we were about to bring to the players, in the novelty we were the creators of. When we presented the game at the Los Angeles show, E3, and then won around 70 different awards, it was a total joy for us. In those days the gamer community became our home. Our safe place, the lighthouse, because although for the new chapter they wanted to venture into unknown seas, we could always count on what they liked. We really cared about Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, and with this new project the team has grown ”. Speaking is Davide Soliani, pioneer of the Italian game industry and creative director of Ubisoft Milan.

Next year Ubisoft Milan studios will touch the quarter century. After the great success of critics and audiences that it has had Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, 2017 title exclusively for Switch, of a turn-based strategic genre, which crowded the Mario universe with hilarious anthropomorphic rabbits from Ubisoft, the Milanese team has really exploded.

Raised from about 70 to 140 people, nearly a quarter of them women, with an average age of 30 to create a new chapter, Sparks of Hope, defined by Managing Director Dario Migliavacca: “A humorous but tactical game where five Ubisoft development studios collaborated for the realization. The production peaks involved 400 people, in a very difficult period such as that of the pandemic ”.

The first episode of the series gave players moments of hilarious Italian style, in Sparks of Hope Davide Soliani tells us: “The game was born in Italy, so we always put something of our own into it. In the new chapter there are several quotes, some characters inspired by historical figures and… poets! Also one of our protagonists, Rabbid Mario, it has an exaggerated characterization of what the Italian macho of 30/40 years ago could have been ”.

Also in the first chapter, the team brought into play some characters who entered the videogame imaginary with fanfare, among them the super fashionable, selfie obsessed, princess Rabbid Peach.

The group worked on true icons of Nintendo, a house notoriously conservative on its intellectual properties, explains Soliani: “We always try to create unique characters. Rabbid Peach is perhaps one of the most famous, almost as appreciated as Mario who is a true video game icon. Achieving this was not easy. Making other characters who could stand alongside Rabbid Peach, have the limelight, was complex. ” Davide smiles satisfied and continues: “We want to evolve the Rabbids, detach ourselves from the past, from how they were represented, chaotic, nuisance … to characters who could speak. So let’s start from scratch, let’s start from what strikes us, from Rabbid Rosalina who has a father daughter relationship with one of the characters from Sparks of Hopeup to Edge, a completely new character inspired by old Japanese RPGs ”.

Regarding creative freedom, Davide Soliani tells us: “Nintendo is very conservative on its characters, but has given us carte blanche on all of ours. The first thing they told me was: you always ask, in the worst case you will hear the answer no“. Over the course of nine years of work, Davide has received a few no and many yeses.

Ubisoft Milan is one of the oldest studios in Italy, it was a gymnasium, a school for many operators in the sector, he says: “Over time everything has changed, very much. Ubisoft itself has changed, it has matured. The internal decision-making processes, the relationship that one has with the headquarters has become a relationship of brotherhood. The Milan office started with players who had a great passion. A dream. Players who entered an international market for the first time, who had to speak in English. Write the documentation in English. We were all a bit embarrassed ”.

Davide smiles as he recalls these anecdotes and continues: “Over the years we have always worked on many different projects and this has given us the strength to evolve, to learn. Then when we started specializing on Mario + Rabbids, in terms of the game universe, just like the artisans, day after day, we have refined our art ”. A progression that in Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, involved five Ubisoft studios in Milan, Paris, Montpellier, Chengdu in China and Pune in India.

The Milan offices employ young professionals, mainly Italians. In some sectors, such as the arts, they have a female component of 50%. a great result.

To pursue a career in this sector Davide tells us: “Before, you could enter the videogame industry even without having completed a specific schooling. Commitment and passion were enough, and if you had technical or artistic skills it was easy to access them. Today the barrier of entry and demands are high. People are asked to know their profession even before entering a studio. Today the advice I can give is to attend a school of video games, possibly online, because they have a more international format. They are those built in London, Denmark or Americans that have a strong contact with the working reality. That said, many training courses in Italy are also growing a lot, in recent years they are flourishing “.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is available from October 20 exclusively for Nintendo Switch. The game is suitable for all ages. The Ubisoft Milano team has also thought about the very young, introducing a totally customizable difficulty system. The system also provides a sort of “god mode” in which the characters do not suffer damage, an attention dedicated to children and parents who can guide them in the adventure without any frustration.