Rayman Legends Retold

[Droolie]

The fact that Rayman was literally jumping into paintings in the original Legends made it easy to assume that none of those places actually existed in the real lore.

But by trying to fix that weak narrative, Retold achieves the exact opposite of what I wanted. It cements these locations as canon reality.

That's a very good point. I don't think anyone at Ubisoft ever put much thought into where these places existed during the development of the original Legends. If they had, they would most likely have come up with something similar to Retold. But since they hadn't and simply made all these places just paintings come to life due to some mysterious force, technically none of those places ever actually existed. They were most likely just dreamt up by whoever painted them.
And now, they're "real" - or as real as any of the other Rayman places ever were. To be honest, these worlds aren't all that different from Band Land/Picture City/Candy Chateau to me, it's just a big step further with the addition of real humans. But I completely agree that it's pretty jarring to see these next to the fantastical locations from Rayman 2 and 3, and that makes it disappointing that these worlds are now "real" locations.

By the way, here is some gameplay for a couple more invaded levels

Have people talked about all the animation bugs in these bits of footage? Of course this is a "pre-beta" build, but even the earliest Origins/Legends footage we'd seen never showed such glaring errors everywhere. I've seen T-posing jacquouilles, Dark Rayman getting stuck in his running animation more often than not, a lack of animation transitions, Rayman standing (not floating) in mid-air... not to mention all the graphics pop-in on faster camera movements. And they have only 4 months to fix all this. Sure explains the internal delay (it was supposed to be released August 27th it seems). I hope that delay will help fix all those issues though, because that's not a lot of time.

[Haruka]

Time to finally share my thoughts on this, I guess!

I am sure Retold will be a solid remake and a good game in its own right despite a few minor issues, but I never asked for a Legends remake to begin with, and I honestly don't care much for it.

Unfortunately, this decision leaves me pretty concerned about the future of the franchise. It is obvious they chose to remake Legends because they want to use it as the definitive foundation for the series' identity going forward. If we ever actually get a 3D Rayman 4, I can already picture it looking much more like a 3D version of Legends rather than the mysterious universe we explored in Rayman 2 and 3.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the UbiArt games. They are fantastic platformers with beautiful art and fitting music, but structurally and tonally, they just don't fit the previous entries. I could at least imagine the environments from Origins existing somewhere in Rayman's world, but Legends is a different story entirely. The worlds are all directly ripped from real-world concepts, whether it's stereotypical medieval tropes, Jack and the Beanstalk, or James Bond. In contrast, Rayman 2 never felt like it had any real connection to our world, even if it drew vague inspiration from fairy tales. There was a specific beauty in a setting populated strictly by strange, fantastical creatures. The introduction of actual humans and real-world parodies in Legends completely changes the fundamental nature of the universe for me.

This shift in identity extends to the characters and lore too. Polokus always had a weird design, but I liked the concept of this detached, mystical creator god so much more than the goofy, hippie Bubble Dreamer living in a treehouse. Between Origins having such a convoluted, poorly told story that no one fully understands to this day, and Legends having essentially no story at all, I was perfectly content treating the UbiArt era as just a dream sequence. The fact that Rayman was literally jumping into paintings in the original Legends made it easy to assume that none of those places actually existed in the real lore.

But by trying to fix that weak narrative, Retold achieves the exact opposite of what I wanted. It cements these locations as canon reality. Rayman's world is officially one of medieval castles, dragons, and human beings. It feels so much more like a generic fantasy setting now rather than the truly unique, otherworldly universe I fell in love with in the earlier games.

I really would have preferred if they just rebooted the franchise from Rayman 3. They could have closed the book on the UbiArt era, or just let it exist in parallel by making it explicitly clear it was a dream or alternate dimension. With Retold, that option is off the table. I just have to come to terms with the fact that the Rayman universe I grew up with is gone, and even if we do eventually get a 3D Rayman 4, it is never coming back.

I subscribe your analysis about this situation as a whole. While I was positively surprised to see an updated Glade of Dreams map acknowledging older locations, it brought me a concern: does this means that all the previous games (especially the original trilogy) aren't canon anymore and from now on the tone of the franchise has to be UbiArt style? Thinking about this gives me a bittersweet feeling. Does everything needs to have a goofy treatment now? That's not what conquered the older fanbase, at least. This gave a bad result to the overall reception to the 30th Anniversary Edition soundtrack of Rayman 1, and that was the music alone.

[RayGamer99]

This is gonna be another long one, so get ready...

While I was positively surprised to see an updated Glade of Dreams map acknowledging older locations, it brought me a concern: does this means that all the previous games (especially the original trilogy) aren't canon anymore...

No offense, but this line of reasoning kind of sounds like an oxymoron to me.

If all of the previous games didn't happen and are no longer canon, then why would Ubisoft go out of their way to put locations from those games on the map? Theoretically, if they were trying to erase the pre-UbiArt games from the timeline, then they would just put locations from Origins and Legends on the map, wouldn't they? Instead, in addition to acknowledging those games, they put places from Rayman 1 (Dream Forest and Blue Mountains), Rayman 2 (Marshes of Awakening, Cave of Bad Dreams, Whale Bay, Iron Mountains), Rayman 3 (Clearleaf Forest, Bog of Murk, Land of the Livid Dead, Desert of the Knaaren, Looming Sea, Summit Beyond the Clouds), and even Rayman Raving Rabbids (Rabbids Landing Site) on here! They even added the Sea of Lums, an area only mentioned in a manual and maybe promotional material for Rayman 2!

Of course, they can't put every location from every mainline Rayman game on this map, lest it get too bloated, but the amount of nods to previous games this map alone contains doesn't make me think that they would Thanos-snap those events out of existence. It's not impossible for them to do this, but wouldn't it be a little strange for them to have all of these locations and then completely separate them from the events that took place there?

Even aside from those, the new costumes we've seen so far are direct references to Rayman 1 and 3. One might not take this too seriously from a lore standpoint, as these are just cosmetics at the end of the day, but if we really think about it, how would Rayman have gotten his Metal Mania skin if he never got the Heavy Metal Fist to begin with? Why would Globox be dressed as a Hoodmonger if the Hoodmongers never existed? Why would Barbara be wearing an outfit inspired by Betilla's classic appearance if the fairy always looked like her Origins or Retold designs?

Finally for this point, Ubisoft just told us that the enhanced edition of Rayman Origins is getting 50 new standees that clearly reference past events from past Rayman games! The two we've seen so far are both references to Rayman 1 (the classic photoboard from that game and the game's final boss fight), but why would there be a photoboard featuring an amalgamation of fallen Rayman 1 enemies if Rayman never fought and defeated them in the first place?

All-in-all, I don't think we should be too worried about Ubisoft removing older games from the continuity. I haven't seen them care this much about past events, or Rayman in general, in a good long time, and these are all within UbiArt games that originally threw most story and previous lore out the window! Sharing your concerns and any criticisms you might have is perfectly fine, and hopefully the points I made alleviated some of those, but let's try not to bite the hand that's feeding us.


As for the strange placement of a lot of these areas, now that I've thought about it, I don't quite think they are quite as retcon-inducing as we might think.

• The map only shows two locations from Rayman 1: The Dream Forest and the Blue Mountains. Again, they probably couldn't cram every location from that game into one corner of this single map, but at least with these two, the mountains are still northeast of the forest, just like in the original game's world map.
• In terms of the Rayman 2 and 3 locations, I think we're forgetting that Rayman travels to most of these areas via Spiral Doors and Teensie Highways, so they could be anywhere in the world for all we know. And before anyone mentions it, yes, I know Rayman 2 had a map showing the canonical locations of that game's areas, but even then, this map stays pretty close to those. Aside from the Marshes of Awakening being southwest of the Cave of Bad Dreams instead of vice versa, just about everything else is still intact. The Iron Mountains are still northwest of the Cave of Bad Dreams, and Whale Bay is still all the way southeast from the Iron Mountains, as Polokus intended. There's even a little purple marking of what kind of looks like Carmen the Whale next to the bay!
• Now, the only game that I see as possibly retconned location-wise is Rayman Origins. That game also had a world map - albeit a very basic one that probably wasn't meant to be taken seriously - laying out the game's locations and how far they are from each other. In this regard, the new map is a complete mess. The Jibberish Jungle is now southwest from the Tree of Tranquility (which I'm assuming is the new name for the Snoring Tree) rather than directly west, the Desert of Dijiridoos is southeast from the Jibberish Jungle rather than directly north, and the Mystical Pique is west of the Jibberish Jungle rather than northeast of it. Utterly unforgivable, am I right?

[Tribelle2026]

Ubisoft should add Aeropolis to the new map

[Hunchman801]

How do you think they will fit the new music levels? There are meant to be 4 new ones in the original game; there is one per world, so do you think this implies more new worlds? Because this music level doesn't fit any world but Teensies In Trouble, but Castle Rock is confirmed to be returning, so we're gonna have multiple per world, or does this imply more worlds

Looks like they're adding more music levels to the existing worlds.

Is that Eat at Joe's beside Kung Foot Island?

Looks like it! In which case, its placement too is inconsistent with the well-established Rayman 1 map.

It's also weird that Kung Foot now takes place on an island, while the background is clearly a steppe with no visible coastline anywhere.

Last night we went for drinks and dinner with boombo, Lovy and RayLums and the former remarked that the idea of a Rabbids landing site was weird, since the stories goes that they originally lived underground, right?

Have people talked about all the animation bugs in these bits of footage? Of course this is a "pre-beta" build, but even the earliest Origins/Legends footage we'd seen never showed such glaring errors everywhere. I've seen T-posing jacquouilles, Dark Rayman getting stuck in his running animation more often than not, a lack of animation transitions, Rayman standing (not floating) in mid-air... not to mention all the graphics pop-in on faster camera movements. And they have only 4 months to fix all this. Sure explains the internal delay (it was supposed to be released August 27th it seems). I hope that delay will help fix all those issues though, because that's not a lot of time.

That's a bit worrying! Let's hope they find the time to fix it...

[Haruka]

No offense, but this line of reasoning kind of sounds like an oxymoron to me.

If all of the previous games didn't happen and are no longer canon, then why would Ubisoft go out of their way to put locations from those games on the map? Theoretically, if they were trying to erase the pre-UbiArt games from the timeline, then they would just put locations from Origins and Legends on the map, wouldn't they? Instead, in addition to acknowledging those games, they put places from Rayman 1 (Dream Forest and Blue Mountains), Rayman 2 (Marshes of Awakening, Cave of Bad Dreams, Whale Bay, Iron Mountains), Rayman 3 (Clearleaf Forest, Bog of Murk, Land of the Livid Dead, Desert of the Knaaren, Looming Sea, Summit Beyond the Clouds), and even Rayman Raving Rabbids (Rabbids Landing Site) on here! They even added the Sea of Lums, an area only mentioned in a manual and maybe promotional material for Rayman 2!

Of course, they can't put every location from every mainline Rayman game on this map, lest it get too bloated, but the amount of nods to previous games this map alone contains doesn't make me think that they would Thanos-snap those events out of existence. It's not impossible for them to do this, but wouldn't it be a little strange for them to have all of these locations and then completely separate them from the events that took place there?

Even aside from those, the new costumes we've seen so far are direct references to Rayman 1 and 3. One might not take this too seriously from a lore standpoint, as these are just cosmetics at the end of the day, but if we really think about it, how would Rayman have gotten his Metal Mania skin if he never got the Heavy Metal Fist to begin with? Why would Globox be dressed as a Hoodmonger if the Hoodmongers never existed? Why would Barbara be wearing an outfit inspired by Betilla's classic appearance if the fairy always looked like her Origins or Retold designs?

Finally for this point, Ubisoft just told us that the enhanced edition of Rayman Origins is getting 50 new standees that clearly reference past events from past Rayman games! The two we've seen so far are both references to Rayman 1 (the classic photoboard from that game and the game's final boss fight), but why would there be a photoboard featuring an amalgamation of fallen Rayman 1 enemies if Rayman never fought and defeated them in the first place?

To clarify what I meant: The fact the world map is now nothing like the landmass of the original map, added to official statements from devs in recent interviews, it's highly suggested that Retold is intended to work as a reboot to the franchise. This might potentially mean that those locations from the previous games, if they're revisited later in future games, they won't be anything like the original tone and aesthetic we've seen before. This is what's concerning me.

All-in-all, I don't think we should be too worried about Ubisoft removing older games from the continuity. I haven't seen them care this much about past events, or Rayman in general, in a good long time, and these are all within UbiArt games that originally threw most story and previous lore out the window! Sharing your concerns and any criticisms you might have is perfectly fine, and hopefully the points I made alleviated some of those, but let's try not to bite the hand that's feeding us.

The latter is a very strong expression that certainly doesn't apply to my case. Despite of my cautious optimism about Rayman's "new" game, it didn't prevent me to pre-order the Switch 2 Launch Edition.

[RayGamer99]

To clarify what I meant: The fact the world map is now nothing like the landmass of the original map, added to official statements from devs in recent interviews, it's highly suggested that Retold is intended to work as a reboot to the franchise. This might potentially mean that those locations from the previous games, if they're revisited later in future games, they won't be anything like the original tone and aesthetic we've seen before. This is what's concerning me.

Ah, well that makes more sense. I would counter the point of the map not looking like the OG one with the fact that older maps only contain locations that are relevant to those games, so tucking them away on one landmass made more sense back then.

All-in-all, I don't think we should be too worried about Ubisoft removing older games from the continuity. I haven't seen them care this much about past events, or Rayman in general, in a good long time, and these are all within UbiArt games that originally threw most story and previous lore out the window! Sharing your concerns and any criticisms you might have is perfectly fine, and hopefully the points I made alleviated some of those, but let's try not to bite the hand that's feeding us.

The latter is a very strong expression that certainly doesn't apply to my case. Despite of my cautious optimism about Rayman's "new" game, it didn't prevent me to pre-order the Switch 2 Launch Edition.

That's good to hear! Sorry if that seemed targeted towards your case; I think I was trying to make a more general statement than anything. Valid criticism is perfectly fine in my eyes, but it gets kind of tiring to me when so many people bash a game merely for what it is rather than what it does or doesn't do.

[goosmaw]

https://raymanpc.com/wiki/script-en/ima ... d_Map.webp

Why is the Cave of Bad Dreams underlined on the map? The only other locations that are underlined are the playable worlds. Does this mean we might visit there in some capacity

[RayGamer99]

That's the conclusion I've reached at least, and it's quite an exciting one if true! We haven't seen Jano's stomping grounds since Rayman 2, so if this game will let us visit the Cave of Bad Dreams, it'll be interesting to see how Retold interprets it.

(Admittedly, if this is true, then maybe they shouldn't have underlined the place on the map to keep it a surprise )

[Noodle]

I GET TO HEAR THE MAGICIAN'S VOICE YEAAHHH!! >:D
I've always been a big fan of Ales and I'm excited to see how much he's connected with the new villain!

Polokus also looks amazing, that design is fun to look at