Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle - Devs discuss music, leaks, and inspirations

The following information comes from a Gamesindustry interview with Ubisoft Milan's Creative Director, Davide Solani, and game composer Grant Kirkhope:

Regarding Solani meeting Miyamoto for the first time:

My first project was Rayman for Game Boy. My second game was Jungle Book: Mowgli's Wild Adventure, also on Game Boy. I was super proud of it. I remember a review saying that it seemed like a Nintendo game. So the first time I went to E3, I brought my Jungle Book game and I met Miyamoto. But I was so shy, like a little kid, that I just gave him the game and asked him to sign it, without even saying hello, presenting myself and explaining that this was my game. So, Miyamoto-san looked at the box like: 'Hmmm, this isn't my game.' But he signed it anyway because he is such a gentle guy. When he gave me the signed game, which of course I still have, I went out of E3 and cried like a baby.

I called up every four or five-star hotel in Milan, pretending to be part of the team, to find out where he was staying. It was a Saturday, it was raining, I had a fever, but I didn't care. I waited there for eight or ten hours. I had brought with me all the games from Ubisoft Milan and I gave them to him. He said goodnight to us in Italian. It was a magical moment. I'm clearly quite crazy. I am a fan. I recognize that it's not super rational.

Kirkhope explaining how he got involved with the project:

I was scared. I got an email from Gian Marco, the producer in Milan in November 2014. He said that he had a game that I might like to do. So I got the NDA all signed up and it was called Rabbids Kingdom Battle. I thought it was a Rabbids game.

It took them a while to fly me out to Paris to meet with Davide [Kirkhope is based in LA]. I remember they took me to the studio and into this backroom. It was all big security, no-one could get in, it had secret keys and all that. I thought it was a bit strange for a Rabbids game. I sat down, and Davide turned on the TV and Mario was there. I thought they'd just been playing a Mario game. And then he started to move Mario. And I was like, 'What are you doing'? And he said: 'This is the game, it's a Mario game'. That was the first I heard about it. It struck me... how on earth was I going to write music for Mario after Koji Kondo, who is the greatest games composer in the world? I thought this is impossible. I can't possibly write music for this game, I'm just not good enough. So I had this blank expression because the fear had gone from 0 to 60 in one second flat.

Solani regarding the game's multiple leaks:

When the game leaks, no one is happy. Also, let's be honest, the reaction at the beginning was not 'sceptical' - it was a little bit worse than that. It was quite hard on the team morale to read some of those comments. I asked for Grant's opinion, [since he] has way more experience than me. 'Do you think they will love it? Do you think they will hate us? Do you think that we've done everything wrong?' I was very, very worried. Because, you know, people on the internet can be very, very, very harsh.

Grant Kirkhope on the game's official reveal at E3:

When the conference finished, Davide and I went for a sandwich across the street. We sat in this little cafe and we were both in shock. It had gone so well. We couldn't believe it. We were drinking our glasses of water and shaking. We were there for half an hour, not saying anything, just staring at each other. We knew that Miyamoto was going to be on stage, but seeing him there, with the gun, and saying such nice words, and mentioning Davide by name... all of that was so surreal.