Ubisoft and Nintendo had partnered up in the past for collaborations, but there was nothing on as grand a scale as Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. That was a collaboration on a completely different level, and certainly helped the two companies to grow closer. In an interview with Variety, Starlink: Battle for Atlas producer Matt Rose thinks it was that marrying of brands that helped Nintendo trust Ubisoft to work with the StarFox series.

"I think it was turning that corner of Nintendo saying, ‘OK, I think this relationship is established enough that we are going to trust you with our brands.’”

Direct access to challenges:

Completing a world now automatically unlocks all the Challenges of this world. Newly unlocked challenges can be accessed directly from the Time Machine Rabbolatory in Peach’s Castle.

Of course, players are still encouraged to go back to the world through the World Cannon to collect chests, find secret areas and encounter Challenges while they’re exploring.

UI Improvements

1. Reworked Heroes presentation:
We reworked the pop-up screens for unlocking new heroes. This will help players quickly understand the specifics of the newly unlocked hero and what they can bring to the team.

Before:

After:

Various Bug fixes and stability improvements

Fans of Nintendo know that the Big N and Ubisoft have been pretty friendly with one another for years now, and that appreciation only seems to grow. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot sat down with GameSpot to talk about their relationship with Nintendo, working with the StarFox brand, and dodge questions about Mario + Rabbids getting a sequel.

On the Nintendo/Ubisoft relationship

It's a long-term relationship, so we've been working with them on all the machines they launched, and so from the beginning of the Wii to the Wii U, Switch, we were always there with them, and so we have been working closely while it was going out, when it was more difficult, so we are real partners that are happy to work together, and that helps a lot. We like what they do also. We are big fans of what Mr. Miyamoto and his team is creating, so that helps the creators at Ubisoft to work with the Nintendo teams because they learn so much.

On working with the StarFox brand

It's never ... it's always ... you know, when you work with the brands of another publisher, it's never easy, because you really have to understand the spirit of it, you have to really bring something that can help that to continue to grow. So it's not easy, but as we know each other well, they are confident that we can really bring high quality experiences, so that helps.

On the potential for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle 2

[Laughs] I can't give you an answer yet.

There's some unique evidence pointing to a major success for Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Ubisoft's Davide Soliani once said that if Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle hit 2 million sold, he would shave his beard. After Ubisoft shared their infographic filled with Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle stats today, a Twitter user got in touch with Soliani to bring up his beard-shaving comment. While the infographic doesn't talk about total sales, Soliani did confirm that he's shaved his beard. Seems like this is a roundabout way of confirming the game has hit 2 million sold, without actually coming out and sharing specific sales figures.

It’s been a year since the Mushroom Kingdom has been torn apart by a mysterious force: new alliances between unlikely heroes were formed to fight the Megabug. Reckless Rabbids transformed by the Megabug were everywhere, teaming up with long-time and newly found enemies to spread chaos across the lands… Peace was eventually restored thanks to you, the strategic masterminds who defeated the most vicious foes.

Your mission didn’t stop there: most of you still wandered around, seeking for more challenges to face. Today, we’re sharing with you an infographic highlighting key elements of your adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom, from the most picked end-game roster to the total time spent in battles.

Players team compo:

Mario is the ultimate team leader and it seems most of you guys have decided to make him team up with Rabbid Peach and Yoshi at the end of the game… but is that your favorite roster to play with? If you feel you may have a better compo in mind, we’re interested to read you in the comments!

Enemies defeated:

The Mushroom Kingdom is favourite place of the enemies to hang out: Ziggies are the most common ones and all of you defeated a total of 307 millions of them. Hoppers hold the second position: they have more health points which make them very hard to defeat without the right team compo and weapons... yeah, they’re definitely not called pinheads for nothing! The Smashers are met later in the adventure but they’ll be chasing you every time you shoot at them – giving you a great satisfaction to wipe them out of the battlefield! Last but not least, if you’re coming after the Valkyries, teaser alert, you better be ready for the challenge. Congratulations on winning against so many of the toughest challengers there are!

Essential facts:

Beep-o has been leading the way for you and your heroes through the whole world, giving you to travel 674 million kilometers – let’s agree on the fact that you’ve done your daily exercise for the next few centuries.
Who would’ve thought that you poured so much honey in the mushroom kingdom? Equipped with your weapon, honey has prevented a lot of your enemies to move, enough to fill up to more than 10 000 Time Washing Machines and turn Rabbids into permanent residents and, you know what? Bowser thanks you for that!
Battles have kept you busy: more than 888 years cumulated were spent in battles. No one here would’ve been alive long enough to witness the beginning and the end of it, except perhaps for Rabbid Cranky…

Wall of fame:

We’ve been impressed to find out you guys were really going after gold trophies and we even have a special mention for the few players who managed to make a perfect run and finish every battle with a gold trophy – you are absolute champs!

Best Buy has a special deal going on for those who pick up a brand-new Switch.

Add a Nintendo Switch console below to your cart, and a free Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle game (a $59.99 value) will be added automatically.

Grab yours here

I already have the japanese version of Mario +Rabbids Kingdom Battle but buying it in Japan is priceless 😂😍 pic.twitter.com/3EzE31Hffq

— Davide Soliani (@DavideSoliani) August 18, 2018

Davide Soliani, the creative director on Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, spotted a game he's familiar with in Japan! While Mr. Soliani already owns a Japanese copy of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, he couldn't help himself from buying another one. It's all about the experience, he says! Nothing quite like traveling to Japan and actually purchasing an official Japanese copy of your own game!

Well here's a collaboration that seemingly came out of nowhere. I don't know why Arby's wants to partner up with Ubisoft and the Rabbids brand right now, but I guess they know better than I do! You can hop on the app store and check out this promotional game for free right now.

Thanks to NintendoWiiBoy for the heads up!

Winners! 🏆👏
Congratulations to @UbisoftParis and @UbisoftMilan for their well-deserved awards at last night's #DevelopAwards 👏 pic.twitter.com/JmFStTSXTd

— Ubisoft Careers (@UbisoftCareers) July 12, 2018

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was a big winner at last night's Develop Awards 2018. The game ended up taking home awards for both the Animation and Visual Design categories. No other Nintendo-related titles took home awards.