In what is possibly one of the oddest video game franchise pairings, Nintendo’s iconic plumber Mario will reportedly collide with Ubisoft’s zany rabbits in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle for Nintendo Switch. Kotaku received assets from a source that were supplied to confirm the existence of the crossover, which has been rumored since last year. According to Kotaku’s source, Switch owners can expect Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle fairly soon — in either August or September.
Mario has crossed over with Sonic in recent years, but Kingdom Battle will apparently be more like the Mario & Luigi RPG titles. Featuring turn-based combat, two-player local cooperative play, and whacky humor, Kingdom Battle will, at the very least, be an interesting experiment. While we don’t know exactly how it will look, Kotaku claimed that the images it saw showed Mario and other characters shooting laser beams.
The four core Super Mario characters — Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, and of course Mario — will be playable alongside four Rabbids who either wear Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, or Peach costumes. Yes, it sounds weird to us, too.
The Ubisoft developed game is built with the studio’s Snowdrop engine, a newer engine used first in Tom Clancy’s The Division, and for the upcoming South Park: The Fractured but Whole.
In October, French website Gameblog reported the existence of a Rabbids/Mushroom Kingdom crossover, when the Switch was still going by its code name “NX.” Laura Kate Dale of Let’s Play Games gave the rumored title widespread attention in November, and at the time declared it a launch day release.
In early January, Dale tweeted that “Rabbids Kingdom Battle” would possibly get delayed until September. There was no mention of the game at Nintendo’s press event in January, and as of publication, neither Nintendo nor Ubisoft have officially announced the game.
With E3 coming up in June, we’d expect to hear more about Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle there, but it’s admittedly weird that the game could be announced in June and hit store shelves just a few months later.
