It’s been a bit since Ubisoft has made a new Rayman game. And while the just-announced Rayman Legends Retold is a remake of the last new Rayman game, 2013’s Rayman Legends, this upcoming 3D glow-up is shaping up to be a fantastic way to bring the platforming legend back after a long wait.
Last month, I got to play Rayman Legends Retold via a private preview event ahead of today’s reveal during Sony’s latest State of Play. Rayman Legends Retold is set to launch in October on consoles and PC, and I got to play about two hours of an unfinished build of Legends Retold. What I played included a few levels based on stages that appeared in the original 2013 Legends, as well as some of the new content included in the remake. A remake, I might add, that I had zero desire for before checking it out.
What is Rayman Legends Retold?
Rayman Legends Retold is a complete, from-the-ground-up 3D remake of the original Legends game, first released over a decade ago on Xbox 360 and PS3, and later ported to other platforms. It features new voices and cutscenes, an expanded narrative, and new levels and enemies, while also bringing back the original levels, including the musical ones, as well as co-op and mini-games. It’s just that the old levels look very different.
The remake is built in Snowdrop, the same engine that powers The Division 2 and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. But while Ubisoft is calling this a 3D remake of Legends, it’s more of a 2.5D remake of the original platformer. Character models and the world are 3D, featuring some exquisite lighting and textures, but (most of) the action is still 2D platforming. You’re still jumping over enemies, under obstacles, and across gaps, and trying to precisely land on platforms like in any good 2D platformer. It just looks incredible while you play.
The visual change is likely to be the most controversial part of Rayman Legends Retold. I found the game’s 3D visuals looked great during gameplay and were even better in cutscenes. At times, it looked like I was watching some unreleased Rayman movie developed by Pixar or Sony Animation. I don’t think Legends Retold looks better than the cartoonish, 2D art style seen in the original game, as they are impossible to compare. Both games are going for totally different looks, and people might prefer one over the other, but for me the 3D visuals look impressively detailed without losing the charm and all the colors that made the original Legends a vibrant masterpiece of 2D platforming.
Interestingly, in a video shown before I played the game, Ubisoft made it clear that they see this remake as the start of more Rayman games to come. The work the teams at Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Montpellier have done on the remake, which took three years to develop, might very well be carried forward into some unconfirmed Rayman adventure in the future. We’ll see if that ends up happening or not.
My hands-on time with Rayman Legends Retold
I’ll admit, when Ubisoft told me about Legends Retold, I wasn’t sold on the idea. It seemed unnecessary to replace the crisp 2D art of Legends with 3D models and environments. Would it look good? Would the gameplay still feel as snappy with new models and animations? Well, after playing for a few hours, I’m convinced that Ubisoft has made something awesome.
Running, hopping, hovering, climbing, and smacking enemies all feel wonderful in Rayman Legends Retold. The new animations and models don’t get in the way of the game’s platforming action, so everything still feels snappy, responsive, and oh-so-satisfying. Even playing the game via a cloud stream, it felt precise and tight enough for me to complete some of the hardest parts of the included demo. Well, after a few deaths.
At one point, I was jumping around an empty area of a level early on in my demo, and the person who was assigned to help me asked if something was wrong. I told him no, I was just having a good time hopping around this one area, an important test of any good platformer. It should be fun to just jump and run around an area without doing any challenges or collecting anything. And Rayman Legends Retold passes that test.
The demo watcher also spoke to me after I kept spending a lot of time tracking down every collectible and glowing Lum. He explained that I was free to do so, but wanted to make sure I knew there were more levels to play and I had a limited time to see them all. That was true. I knew I should focus on seeing everything the demo had to offer. And then like five seconds later, I spotted something shiny just out of reach and went after it like a cat seeing a laser pointer. It’s hard to resist! Rayman Legends Retold is filled with secrets to find, and hunting them down is so enjoyable that I couldn’t help myself, especially as some secrets reveal mini-games and bonus stages. So yeah, if you’re concerned that this game may not be filled with reasons to replay levels, like collectibles to find and times to beat, don’t be. That’s all here and then some.
I also played two of the newly-added Dragon Ride levels. These feature Rayman flying on a pudgy dragon while trying to save people and avoid hitting debris and other obstacles. Visually, these levels were amazing. It was neat to see the world via a truly 3D perspective. But actually playing these Dragon Ride levels was a pain. I ended up doing very, very poorly. My demo assistant told me a lot of people struggle the first time they play these fast-paced 3D stages. I’m not sure if he was just being nice or telling the truth.
Either way, I’m going to try to do better in those dragon levels when Rayman Legends Retold launches on October 1 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC.
