It looks like all that complaining about Rayman Legends’ delay paid off – not only will players be able to experience the game on both PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as Wii U when it releases this September, Wii U players will be able to play a large section of the game for free as early as April. That’s still a month after the game was set for release, yes, but it’s a good enough compromise.
Senior Game Manager Michael Micholic and Creative Designer Michel Ancel took to Rayman’s official Facebook page to share the news, with Micholic stating that they were “truly humbled by the outpouring of support from the community and the fans about the announcement of the delay” going on to say that it “definitely hurt us to see you guys so upset”.
Ancel chipped in, saying that they’ve now got time to add new content to Legends, including characters, levels and bosses, though they’re aware that fans want to play the game as soon as possible and, similarly, they’d love to share the game as soon as they can.
Rather than releasing an exclusive demo, as Ubisoft had previously announced, they’ve decided to release the game’s full online challenge mode, which offers various daily and weekly challenges for players.
This challenge mode features support for up to five players, with Micholic reiterating the Wii U’s exclusive features, in the form of co-operative challenges in exclusive dungeon levels featuring the GamePad. There’s even support for online leaderboards and ghosts, so plenty of playability here.
It seems like a good amount of content – “it will be playable for countless hours” Micholic says – for free and shows that the developers do care about the Wii U – it wasn’t their decision to delay the game, clearly. The challenge mode will release in early April.
LTG Davey
Not good enough.
TSBonyman
So long as the Black Betty bit is in the main game i won’t mind the Wii-U owners having some exclusive content.
KeRaSh
Well, it’s better than nothing!
Eldur
I don’t get why people are getting so upset about this. Games are delayed all the time… Are Wii U owners so starved of games that they can’t wait a little longer for Rayman?
Blair Inglis
It’s more that the game was ready to release in just a couple of weeks. Completely finished, only delayed for marketing purposes presumably.
Alex C
MS: Hey, can we have Rayman too?
UBI: No. Wii U exclusive.
MS: Please?
UBI: OK.
MS: Cool. Delay the Wii U version until the 360 version is done.
UBI: Right.
KeRaSh
It’s really sad that it probably went down just like that.
Eldur
Fair enough. But it seems a strange (if laudable) game to get your knickers in a twist over.
ND: We’re delaying The Last of Us.
Community: Dang. Oh well.
UBI: We’re delaying Rayman Legends.
Community: TO THE TREEEEEEEEES!
yiddo
I can understand why Wii U owners are annoyed, as they could have released the game (as it’s done near enough) on there and released the other versions later, but MS wouldn’t stand for it.
Still though, I was pissed off that this was a Wii U exclusive anyway. Rayman Origins was awesome and I have always loved Rayman, felt a bit shafted as a PS3 owner tbh. Glad it’s multiplatform now.