The gaming internet was agog today over what appear to be leaked marketing images of an upcoming Super Mario team-up with Ubisoft’s Rabbids characters, despite word of the game’s existence having trickled out via various gaming news outlets (including this one) for months.
The words “Mario is going to be in a game with the Rabbids” may have been rumored and reported repeatedly, but they really can’t compete with images like the one above.
That illustration and some others were featured today on the website Nintendo World Report and seem to be marketing slides for the upcoming Switch game. These shots had been making the rounds among gaming reporters, rumormongers, and hardcore fans for weeks. In early May they were passed to us, although our source asked us not to share any of them. Most of the information from these slides appeared in our report and others about the game.
Some game leaks involve trailers or screenshots, but this one involves what look to be marketing plans, including a timeline of how to roll the game out (“surprise at announcement”… awkwardly not happening now) and how to pitch it. One slide boasts that the game will avoid cliches like “a distressed princess,” though the same slide has the curious typo: “Turtle shelves? Can do better.”
While the broken English in the images would usually be seen as a sign of a hoax, it’s more likely that, this time, it is a result of unfinished work from a gaming giant that is headquartered in France. One slide notes that the game is being developed by Ubisoft’s Paris and Milan studios and that the one-to-two-player “crazy combat adventure” should run 20 hours and be out in August or September.
The existence of the game signals strong support from one of the world’s largest gaming publishers for Nintendo’s new system. Mega-publishers like Take Two, EA and Activision have refrained from going all-in on Nintendo hardware since the Wii two generations ago, in part because Nintendo’s hardware can rarely run the same games those companies make for PlayStation and Xbox machines and in part because Nintendo system-owners tend to favor Nintendo-made games. Ubi teaming with Nintendo on a game—and Nintendo letting them make a game with Mario—signals
[Source”timesofindia”]