If the company has been in turmoil for several years, there was a time, not so long ago, when Ubisoft was still a guarantee of quality, innovation, creativity… In the mid-1990s, the company with its then magnificently colorful logo offered a certain Rayman, first on Jaguar, then on PlayStation, before being ported to other platforms. A 2D platform game which features an atypical blond hero, drawn by Michel Ancel (with the help of Frédéric Houde), without arms or legs, but with a willing nose, and wearing white gloves and yellow sneakers. and a red scarf. The Rayman legend was born.
The Rayman series only has… 5 main opuses
If you shed a little tear at each new episode of our PasTech saga, then you may have experienced the very first Rayman on that good old PlayStation. Armless and legless, our hero must save the world against the threat of the infamous Mister Dark. The game is very beautiful, very colorful for the time, with the added bonus of very successful animations and absolutely impeccable 2D.
Rayman quickly became a phenomenon, but we had to wait until 1999 to discover Rayman 2 The Great Escape, first on Nintendo 64 and PC, then on Dreamcast and PlayStation. An episode that swaps its 2D appearance for the sacrosanct 3D. In 2003, Rayman 3 made its debut (on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, etc.), the first episode of the saga not to be supervised by Michel Ancel.
We will then have to wait until 2011 to discover Rayman Origins, a platform game with dual multiplayer and musical tendencies which helped to launch a new genre, copied many times since. Rayman Legends followed in 2013, then… nothing.
Indeed, the main Rayman series only has 5 main episodes. Added to this, however, are so-called “derivative” games, notably Rayman M, without forgetting the countless Rayman and the Rabbids.
Rayman, a true hero “made in France”!
Just as Mario embodies the Nintendo spirit, in the 90s/2000s, Rayman was the mascot of the Ubisoft group. A story that begins in 1989, when the talent of Michel Ancel (then aged 17) caught the eye of Gérard Guillemot, one of the three brothers at the origin of Ubisoft.
It is on Atari ST that Michel Ancel will develop a small character, inspired by Tex Avery, and from whom he will remove arms and legs in order to make the movements more fluid. Frédéric Houde is in charge of the programming part, and Ubisoft gives free rein to the tandem for the development of Rayman, which brings together a team of around a hundred people in Montpellier.
First launched on Jaguar, it is obviously on PlayStation that Rayman will explode upon its launch at the end of September 1995. If it is not easy to complete, Rayman seduces players with its universe and its humor, and even today, it is not uncommon among certain retrogaming enthusiasts to relaunch this little nugget “made in France”.
A Rayman also present on the edutainment market
If he is an integral part of our video game culture, the character of Rayman is also associated with the…edutainment market. Indeed, from the end of the 1990s, the character signed by Ubisoft was at the heart of a range of educational games (on PlayStation) called “Rayman Junior”. The game allows young players in CP, CE1 and CE2 to revise calculations and reading, without forgetting a range dedicated to English, German and Spanish.
Rayman also allowed certain children to refine their spelling with “Les Dictées de Rayman”, but also for younger children to discover their “First Clicks”, with software dedicated to children aged 2 to 4 years.
Added to this was Rayman Eveil, an edutainment program intended for children aged 4 to 6, released in 1997 on PC, which offered calculation activities, reading, music awareness, memorization exercises, etc.
Towards a return of Rayman… finally!
It’s been more than ten years since the Legends episode that Rayman fans have been waiting for a new episode worthy of the name. Good news today, since this new episode has officially entered “in the reflection phase” from Ubisoft Milan. Among the development team, in addition to certain artists from Ubisoft Montpellier (to whom we owe the very good Prince of Persia The Lost Crown), we would also find… Michel Ancel!
However, we will have to wait a little longer before knowing what the real twist adopted by this new Rayman will be. For many months now, some analysts have been talking about a remake of the founding opus, launched in 1995. Among fans, many are hoping for a real Rayman.old-fashioned“, without necessarily (too much) eyeing the side of music or even excessive multiplayer.