Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope director: harder to make than Kingdom Battle, Ubisoft’s comments were “a bit hurtful”

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope creative director Davide Soliani has opened up about developing the game as well as Ubisoft’s comments following its launch.

In an interview with VGC, Soliani said that Sparks of Hope was actually tougher to make than Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. It seems that with the first entry, there weren’t really any expectations or limitations. However, Kingdom Battle ended up being a success story which impacted Sparks of Hope. Davide noted that there “was too much overthinking about it all around me.”

Soliani said the following in the interview:

“For me, Kingdom Battle was a personal project, like the one that we are doing now at Day 4 Night. It was really a love letter to Nintendo. It’s not a surprise that I’m a Nintendo lover. In my office, I currently have a huge Mario plushie that my friend sent me from Tokyo.

But Sparks of Hope was a surprise. With the first game, nobody was really trying to stop me. Because nobody was expecting anything from Kingdom Battle, I had a lot of freedom. But because the first one was a big success, Sparks of Hope was way harder to develop than Kingdom Battle. There was too much overthinking about it all around me. So to me it was a bit… it was still a joy, it was a wonderful experience because I always loved working with Nintendo and I will always will.

It was also critically well received. I cannot share the sales number, but it’s still growing, it’s still selling. It’s following a similar path to what Kingdom Battle did, minus Covid. Because let’s not forget, during Covid all games were like plus 30% more just because people were stuck in their home playing games.”

In January 2023, Ubisoft stated in its financial report that Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope did not meet expectations. The publisher said that sales were “markedly and surprisingly slower than expected”. Even though Ubisoft acknowledged the quality of the game, those remarks impacted the team.

Soliani mentioned:

“The message that we received about how the game was faring was a bit hurtful for the morale of the team. Because we just finished working for three and a half years and were super committed to creating a very good game. So, of course, it was not the kind of message that we wanted to receive back in those days. It was a bit hurtful, but nothing crazy. I think that’s normal… every development team is proud of what they are doing and always searching for encouraging words, which in that situation, was maybe needed. It was a bit harsh on the team, but nothing that we didn’t solve by talking internally back when we were in the company.”

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is out on Nintendo Switch. As for Soliani, he left Ubisoft last year – you can find more information about that here.