Ubisoft was working on Rayman Origins for Wii U

Rayman Legends is shaping up to be one of Wii U’s better-looking launch window titles.

But here’s a bit of trivia for you: did you know its predecessor also could have been released on the console?

In an interview with Nintendo Power, Rayman creator Michel Ancel told the magazine that the team had been making Origins for Wii U since there was uncertainty about when the system would launch. Of course, the team had no choice but to scrap development once they learned that Wii U wouldn’t be released in 2011.

“To be honest, we were on Wii U very early – even for Origins.

“… We did not know exactly when Nintendo would release the system, but we started making Origins for Wii U. [At that point], we thought Wii U would come out a lot earlier. We worked very closely with Nintendo [on Wii U] early on, giving them feedback on the various prototypes.

“When we finished Origins, it was time to start thinking about Wii U again, because [the hardware] was nearly complete. So to answer your question, we wanted to make a Rayman game and started to explore how we could make it interesting using Wii U.”