RAYMAN YEAH!!
FIRST OFF!! The History
Rayman as a character was originally created by Michel Ancel as a teenager far before he even started working at Ubisoft. The game itself was originally being developed with the Atari Jaguar in mind, however Ubisoft caught wind of a little console that Sony was developing and they absolutely had to have it on this console due to its power. To this day, the Playstation 1 version of Rayman 1 is generally considered the definitive edition, with the best art and music.
The team gets to work on Rayman 2 not too long after! Rayman 2 was originally drafted to be a 2d platformer like its predecessor and more of a direct sequel, however along the way they decided to make it a 3d platformer instead. With this change, they also changed the story to being more separate and it shares few, if any, story elements with the first game. Rayman 2: The Great Escape does well and to this day is considered one of the best of its genre.
This success leads to work beginning on Rayman 3. Michel Ancel plays a lesser role in the development, acting as an executive producer and consultant rather than more hands-on. This is due to the fact that he was working on a newer, separate project of his, Beyond Good and Evil. Rayman 3 leaned more into being silly, especially notable through the marketing for the game. Like just gesturing to the notorious Huge Features urinal ad and the pissing in the snow commercial used to promote the game.
There would be no Rayman 4. The closest that came to being Rayman 4 was Rayman Origins, but that was a reboot and acts within its own continuity.
This in mind, the handheld ports of the series were generally drastically different from their console counterparts. A notable example is the handheld version of Raving Rabbids, which is closer to the original concepts for the game when it was intended to be Rayman 4 before shifting into the party game/minigame collection that it is now. There's also Hoodlum's Revenge for the Gameboy Advance, which is both a sequel and port of the game Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc.
This isn't the most in depth history lesson you could get on the guy, this is just the skinny of it because I really like him.
SO WHAT'S MY DEAL WITH HIM??
As a kid, I was actually introduced to Rayman as a character from Raving Rabbids. Specifically, the first Raving Rabbids game before they slowly overshadowed and wrote him out. My childhood friend had owned the game for the Wii and I remember being transfixed by his design, it was very striking! Fast forward a couple years later, I would be seeing the advertisement for then-yet-unreleased Rayman Origins and I was enamoured with the art style, finding the ad to be absolute eye candy. I actually do still stand by the sentiment that Origins has my favourite design and style in the entire franchise, I feel that it fits the energy of the series very well.
Flash forward again several years in the future, like about a decade I suppose?? Now I'm being told about this adult animated cyberpunk show from Ubisoft that incoporates several of their most iconic properties, including their own mascot -- the one and only Rayman! This show was a ton of fun by the way, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is by far one of the most entertaining adult animated series I've seen in a long while and you should definitely give it a watch if you haven't.
With the seeming success of Captain Laserhawk and the release of the Rayman DLC for Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, things are looking up for the lil thingamajig. Here's to hoping he finally gets another mainline game of his own, it's been far too long.
