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Rayman Legends Retold has finally been announced, and chances are the thing you've been most focused on – outside of why remake this game of all the Rayman titles – is the new art. Rayman Legends is timeless; it looked incredible in 2013, and 13 years later it still holds up as one of the most gorgeous platformers ever created.
While at Ubisoft Montpellier, I spoke to Desislava Tanova, associate lead, art, and Alice Pisoni, associate art director, and dug into the changes made in this new version. "Of course we felt the pressure of taking such a well-known brand and such a loved art style and make it something different" Pisoni tells me, "it wasn't an easy path, but we were all super happy to be able to put our hands on something that beautiful and have the possibility to actually make something of our own, but while always being faithful to the original."
However, as we all know, translating a 2D cartoon into a realistic art style is tricky – just ask the Sonic movie producers – so I had to ask how the team approached this and straddled the line of what is too realistic to work in this series.
"We have a great concept team", Tanova says, "So the language was defined, and we translated this language in 3D."
She explains that it was about finding the balance between the interesting shapes of the Rayman cast and the materials used for them. You can spot the fabric detail in Rayman's hoodie and gloves, or the amphibian-like skin of Globox.
Pisoni notes that in Legends, Rayman's face was a "flat, normal pink," while this new 3D model allows them to deal with the likes of freckles and pores. While I didn't get a chance to play the level, El Luchador's model was shown to us, and the detailing in his singlet, down to the somewhat greasy chest hair, was undoubtedly impressive.
As for the environments, Pisoni told me, "One of our main goals is to make the player stop, and just take a break, and just look at what it's actually around in the environment." And this is one area where Legends Retold does give the original game a run for its money. The backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous, and allow for small little details – that, granted, you'll probably miss if you run through the levels.
These include somewhat comedic set pieces like seeing world two's frog boss bathing himself in the background of the hub or bits of worldbuilding like skeletons strung up in the dungeons or little rabbits going to their huts in the swamp. Tanova explains, "From the very beginning, the idea was to enhance it, to tell deeper visual storytelling, and it naturally comes to adding details and animated background elements."
Tanova adds that the team had to "keep the balance between the background and the playground, because it has to be very readable." Pisoni adds, "When you have parts with completely complicated gameplay, we try to keep the background as simple as possible."
In its recent earnings report, Ubisoft stated that it is "Leveraging AI to enhance player experience and boost teams’ creativity and efficiency," and with an announcement like that, it's only natural that people are going to look at every project through that lens.
I asked the artists about this and was given a straight answer that we want to hear: "We don't use AI in the project; everything is handcrafted," Tanova explains, adding that "our goal" is to approach it "through the eye of an artist, so everybody can get involved in the process."
While the more realistic art style is certainly a different take on the franchise – and one I'm sure people will be totally normal about – after my hands-on with the game, it's a version I see the merits of. Parts of it look a bit off for sure (again, I really don't like Rayman's teeth), but the lighting changes, use of camera angles, background details, and endemic life scattered around the areas do give this take on the game something over the original.
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