Rayman 4 (Raving Rabbids) - Prototype Restoration

Download link: raym.app (Rayman Control Panel)
Yo everyone! This video is gonna have never seen before content from Rayman 4.
I did a little video two years ago on some elements I had found back then (if you didn’t watch it there will be a link in the description, I advise watching it first). tl;dr the prototype Rayman from Rayman 4 is still useable and playable in Raving Rabbids! But recently, Droolie found out that the game has a ton of flags for him and for how the game works in general. Quick recap for those who don’t know: Rayman 4 was supposed to be an action adventure game (just like Rayman 2 and Rayman 3 Hoodlum Havoc were) with the rabbids as the main antagonists. Sadly, due to a number of the reasons, the game was “cancelled” and recycled into a party game. This party game was released as Rayman Raving Rabbids. But, since the game was based off of Rayman 4, this leads us to one big question: is there anything left in the files of this game that could be interesting?
Well, it turns out that what I’ve shown before was a fraction of what was actually left and Droolie managed to reactivate everything with the flags! You’ll see that it is much more interesting than my old video. :-)
Credits:
Reverse engineering, mods & thumbnail by Droolie
Initial research, video & testing by Got4n
Rayman Control Panel & Mod UI by RayCarrot

[@shadowmaster452]

It's crazy, the party game was literally a last minute change, the whole game was simply built on top of the latest prototype at the time. I feel so happy and disappointed at the same time. Thank you man, this is beautiful.

[@donnj4874]

It‘s crazy… I think they saw much potential in the Rabbids franchise and scrapped Rayman… You can see that in how slowy Rayman dissappears from Raving Rabbids 2 to the third and how they suddenly killed off Rayman completely for Rabbids Go Home…

[@adriangodinez4198]

@@donnj4874 idk about you guys but I loved rabbids go home. They should have continued with the rayman games and let rabbids be their own thing rather than just completely replacing him.

[@donnj4874]

@@adriangodinez4198 Yes Rabbids Go Home was amazing but for me that is really the only seperate Rabbids game that can be titled that way. The last solid Rabbids was Alive and Kickin‘ for the XBox kinect system. The first RRR was real good but shouldn‘t have replaced the whole Rayman 4 style it once had in early production stages. I think RRR should have a comeback because for my personal taste the Rabbids are nothing without Rayman (only RGH) but Rayman can definitley live without them. So both a single Rayman (that should come in 1-2 years) and a RRR (if well executed) would be a dream.

[@karimitickaeloogreattemlor3486]

@@adriangodinez4198 *IKR!*

[@HoodoHoodlumsRevenge]

These discoveries are incredible to see after all these years, I am blown away! Incredible work all around to those who made these things possible, this is all so cool to see! The Rayman 4 we never got looked so interesting…

[@FrameRater]

This is incredible. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, let alone giving access to a playable option. I hope we get to see more in the future, if there's anything left in the game to be shown off.

[@RayCarrot]

If you go to the Rayman Pirate Community forums, the Mods and Utilities section and then the thread for this mod then you'll find a post by Droolie where he details what else is left in the game. Sadly most of the things aren't possible to re-implement due to something missing, but at least it's cool to know about what could have been. (I tried posting a direct link before, but I think KZbin's spam filter flagged it due to having an external link as it was removed...).

[@BerkeLy2003]

@@RayCarrot hopefully with what we are given we could re-mod the rest of Rayman 4 ourselves! Honestly can't wait for the day, time for the Rayman Fandom to make our own canon!

[@Retrofuge]

Already by looking at this. This Rayman 4 would have been more fun than the Raving Rabbids stuff we got. It’s such a shame that it was scrapped.,

[@blargofallblargs3939]

Totally

[@jahmirwhite7807]

@@blargofallblargs3939 imagine an alternate universe in which Rayman 4 is the real deal!

[@blargofallblargs3939]

@@jahmirwhite7807 just imagine what fun it could have been!

[@miserablepileofsecrets]

It would have been fun. Looks darker than thr final party game that we have. I still like Raving Rabbids, but having both would have been cool

[@paulelwey847]

@@miserablepileofsecrets something that would have been perfect for not desperdiciate the content of raving rabbits if rayman 4 was still finished, its that it would have the minigames of rayman raving rabbids like bonus levels

[@UlticraftMTT]

This is honestly really cool, i like how Rayman moves in the game, it's like Sonic Adventure combined with Jak and Daxter With some redesigning of the environments and lots of custom code, someone might be able to squeeze out a finished Rayman 4 using these unused functions.

[@HarukaTavares]

OK wow, I never thought I would see some of these things actually playable. Fantastic findings! We could have had a good Rayman 3 sequel, seeing the potential of some of the things shown in this video.

[@meirhasdai747]

I so want new Rayman game

[@Neoniq41]

@@meirhasdai747 We all do lol

[@RaTcHeT302]

IT USED TO BE A REAL RAYMAN GAME? BLAH

[@meirhasdai747]

@@RaTcHeT302 we need support Rayman sepcetor of leptys Rayman revenge of dark Rayman 2 hd and Rayman redemption

[@karimitickaeloogreattemlor3486]

@@meirhasdai747 Thanks for the project names! :D I'll be sure to check ´em out

[@Dallascalo]

The Rayman community is so amazing, love it

[@meirhasdai747]

Ya but ubishit don't care its so sad

[@clutchhh]

@@EvolutionArchive23 yeah but any community based around something people like a lot is terrible

[@TDRR_Gamez]

IT LEAKED. It seems to lack a decent bunch of what's here, but there's also a lot of things we haven't seen to unpack. Levels to test of course, 4 whole creatures you can ride on (and the spider is very functional, can even climb on walls and such), and some never seen before mechanics. It includes source code and an editor, so it's definitely gonna be quite useful.

[@MIITRIN]

This genuinely made me cry tears of joy. I can’t believe how much stuff there is here. It’s insane

[@SchmookyLuke]

Me too bud, me too.

[@11Natrium]

What a bizarre watch, seeing what could have been of Rayman 4

[@murkytool]

All those things make me believe that Rayman 4 was gonna be one of the biggest games in the franchise Really sad how it turned out to be Very interesting video

[@miss-cerasus]

Such a shame we never got the promising Rayman 4. Amazing discoveries as always!

[@invaderzim2243]

This is the Rayman I know right here.

[@troin3925]

Someone needs to make a Rayman 4: Raving Rabbids prototype remake fangame already.

[@RikardKarlssonYoutube]

Screw Ubisoft, lets just make our own Rayman 4 lol. But we seriously could! 👍🤘

[@g3nre267]

Amazing work!!! Always makes my day seeing these new discoveries while also making me very sad that we will never get something like this :(

[@volume8661]

Slowly with everyday, we getting closer to Rayman 4 proto.

[@XradicalD]

I may be getting ahead of myself but honestly I think Rayman 4 would've been REVOLUTIONARY for platformers had it launch. Platforming with a huge variety of combat, mix and match live on field, boost for getting through large areas, etc. Rayman would have been YEARS ahead of the back then current platformers and if you compare, a lot of the new ones just barely get to do what Rayman 4 drafted; Mario odyssey BARELY does open world with platforming, Sonic is just getting to mix open world with combat, Zelda redefined the classic franchise combat into a more dynamic on-field mix and match one, you name it. We were ABSOLUTELY ROBBED. Maybe I'm just idolizing a "what if" but honestly with the bare bones we have here, it already looks amazing.

[@julianx2rl]

Its funny to see that some of these moves actually made it into Origins. I mean the Stomp, dash, slide, the melee combat, and most important of all... Dancing (Cinematics only).

[@baczekk]

It would be amazing if someone mod the game into the prototype version (kinda impossible but we will see.)

[@bartzacky9639]

Man, wished the Wii didn’t have to limit the game

[@Luseu]

I honestly didn't expect so much to be leftover Makes me wonder more how the finished original concept would have been like?

[@scr0ngle108]

Fitting for this game's development to have a rabbit hole

[@NiNGalaxU2]

I don't know how to say this, but ever since I was 13 I wanted to see this. I deeply believed that there is still the original game inside RRR's code but couldn't find anything on the internet and I myself can't do programming so eventually I just gave up. But seeing this video made the little kid inside of me very happy. I'm an adult now by the way. This is all I wanted to see and I can't thank you enough. Maybe you could do playthroughs of the shooting maps with R4's gameplay and show it here or do an entire view of each of the areas (desert, beach, grave, etc) as I feel especially the desert and grave areas have so much to see and are big, maybe these 2 were fleshed out during development of R4. Seeing this whole video also made me realize that with enough fan support and talented people like yourself, this game could be made into the original Rayman 4. The story can be recreated from the GBA version of RRR. It's a high ambition, I know, but it's possible. Plus Ubisoft doesn't shut down fan projects as seen with Rayman 1.5 or Revenge of the Dark.

[@Damian-cilr1]

I mean. It might be possible

[@karimitickaeloogreattemlor3486]

They could make videos or maybe you could try out these levels yourself since it's actually playable! :D

[@drifter402]

Merry Christmas

[@karimitickaeloogreattemlor3486]

@@drifter402 Thanks! A happy chrimbus to you too and a merry polar express!

[@MilesTheCreator]

Whoa, wasn't expecting this game to have more unused content. Amazing find guys! :)

[@UsagiDood]

This made my night! We may never get an alpha or even beta of Rayman 4, but these discoveries are magnificent! I've had a smile the whole time

[@daninoob007]

this aged like milk, and it's perfect

[@UsagiDood]

@@daninoob007 ABSOLUTELY!!

[@greenD7244]

This is amazing. I tried looking into the files myself because I was inspired by your old video but I couldn’t do much (the only thing I could find was stuff that looked like it was code for a boss fight or something.) Seeing all this new stuff restored and made playable is really, really cool.

[@Wupdog]

Fantastic job! Guess this is the closest we'll get to a new 3D Rayman game...

[@nexu9019]

Who's the mad man in Ubisoft that suggested to cancel this masterpiece? I want to have a talk with him

[@jb8876]

Michel Ancel did, because the Wii wasn't powerful enough & ubisoft wanted the game to launch with it

[@powerkirbybomber6503]

The most common explanation is that Ancel experimented with the Wiimote and realized that it would be better suited to minigames than an action platformer. I have my doubts about reason however since Raving Rabbids is a multi-platform game and the early trailer showed two kids using a Wiimote to punch Rabbids.

[@SomeGuyOnHisDreamBike]

@@powerkirbybomber6503 Ancel left the team because of Rayman 4 not moving forward fast enough. Ubisoft Picture was then asked to build a Wii launch game within six months. We reused everything we had developed as starting point for mini games. Almost 120 mini games were prototyped then we kept the best sixty.

[@Thermometer10]

@@SomeGuyOnHisDreamBike Were you a developer on the team? Love to hear more stories!

[@SomeGuyOnHisDreamBike]

@@Thermometer10 Yes, was one of the gameplay programmer :) Feel free to ask. It's now quite far in my memories but I remember a few thing about what I was working on (mount physics and AI to manage their inertia and to drive more or less efficiently in races, providing pathfind system to rabbids in order to get them able to take cover and find lines of sight). The team was really amazing. I am now working in a young startup and after fifteen years I finally got back the nice feeling of small teams and efficiency

[@-Poka-]

Man, back in the day if this was released, Rayman 4 would much compared with Epic Mickey, with its dark atmosphere, fun soundtrack, characters, and more

[@wolfcl0ck]

So I was never a Rayman kid growing up. I played Raving Rabbids, and that was pretty much my only experience with the series. But I'm only just now learning about all this Rayman 4 stuff and how quickly Raving Rabbids was rushed together after 4's cancellation, it's incredible! You rarely ever see *this* much content being leftover in a game that was completely repurposed, I never thought such a thing would be! Here's my question for you: How do you feel about the fact that the Rayman 4 prototype and associated level editor finally leaked?

[@TheAdventuresOfJimiJaden]

Same dude

[@Fuchsfein]

Thank you all for your incredible work on this! This is so exciting to see, probably the closest we'll ever get to playing the original Rayman 4. I still don't understand why they turned it into a minigame collection, what a bizarre and sad decision. I miss the old Rayman...

[@bartzacky9639]

Blame the Wii

[@Fuchsfein]

@@bartzacky9639 The motion control fad at the time, oh yes. A party game had more broad "casual" appeal than a platformer for more invested gamers. Sadly Ubisoft have a history of making dumb decisions with their games.

[@MisReal05]

Really cool! Thanks for all the work you put in for the Rayman community. God bless all three of you!

[@Master4lyf1]

Holy shit... Y'all are amazing for managing this.

[@carsuecontento]

good job its amazing the rescued mechanics

[@TurskuTheGamer]

Thank you so much!! These new discoveries are so cool

[@dissonanceparadiddle]

it's incredible the work the team has done. It's wild how much they kept in and built off of. I guess when you have to scramble last minute you take a lot of shortcuts.

[@jess648]

This could’ve been a cool sequel to Rayman 3 since it reused the costume power ideas. It also could’ve kept the combo score system with the new combat mechanics factoring into it Its a shame that the Wii (where development mainly took place) wasn’t powerful enough to make the free roaming, open combat platformer they wanted to

[@TabalugaDragon]

How fun this looks is a great indication of what an amazing game we lost. Thanks so much for your work!

[@SolarFarle]

The glimpse of the alternative universe where Raving Rabbids wasn't a party game.

[@SolarFarle]

@RayCarrot Hi fellow Rayman fan.

[@Larry-um6tx]

Rayman 4 would have been amazing

[@purpleplasma4824]

"See you in Rayman 4" Its been 20 years....

[@magolord2820]

I'm ngl, I wouldn't be surprised if someone or a team of fans remade Rayman 4 using all of this as a base plus all of the discoveries about the plot of the game and the remaining assets used and unused, and it's probably the closest we'll ever get to a full Rayman 4 game unfortunately...

[@FindingsOfAnArmouredMind]

God FUCKING damn it, now all I want is to actually play the damn prototype :( The things you make feel..

[@nickgreene9456]

I wonder if ubisoft (unlikely) will change their mind and return to an open world Rayman game considering even Sonic is doing it now

[@arnoldfranklin]

This is soo cool. I loved your first one and seeing more like the one at the end was really cool.

[@lolstationvita5922]

I maybe really liked the final version of game, but would be cool to go into parallel universe where Ubisoft maded RRR as an action game.

[@GoodSmile3]

Man it's so sad we never received a 3D platformer RRR game. I really liked the idea of collecting costumes and manipulating rabbids by dancing. Too bad Wii was released at the same year the game was developed, they just had to make it a collection of minigames to finish in time.

[@Garrulous64]

So what you're saying is, this game was going to be incredible but instead we got a mini-game collection

[@CpgamerX]

it feels like the mini games were supposed to give extra playability with multiplayer as a extra. I remember being hyped by the Promo rayman 4 footage....... to see that it was covered up using the assets of the original direction to push the minigames and by extension the Rabbids themselves to the forefront, really makes me sad and mad that the potential rayman 4 we were promised was wasted like this.

[@CallMeElwis94]

All of this, it's just so incredible! This would've been such a great game! Sadly, we were left instead with such potential wasted...

[@spanishprotossstalker7475]

incredible i've liked rayman raving rabbids for YEARS now since the wii and xbox 360 and i didn't know it was going to be an entirely different game. What a shame!

[@spinelandrodrigoandres8863]

See you in rayman 5!

[@colbybaker4651]

If only this old version of rayman 4 could be rebuilt from this prototype

[@haythurjack3967]

This is awesome stuff. Please keep up the great work - if not you, then I'm not sure anyone else would! Really fantastic stuff to see after so many years :) It'd be awesome if you were to set up a Discord dedicated to Rayman finds. I'd definitely be interested in joining it!!

[@Pufstnutbrainofficial]

This is wonderful

[@TonicGaro]

I mean I never thought this would see the light of day. Guess I was wrong. Keep up the good work!

[@Keanine]

I had ended up convincing myself the original game was going to be an adventure which was strung together with minigames, and they ended up just focusing on the minigames instead. This definitely proves me wrong, there was so much going on that ended up getting cancelled. Thank goodness they didn't delete all the files in the build!

[@Zachrzan]

That's extremely impressive stuff

[@anthonymarziano9984]

This is crazy that you were able to get this keep of finding these secrets.

[@Visleaf]

This is crazy to look back on

[@donnj4874]

That is just awesome thank you so much! My question is is everything Rabbids based because I‘ve that there were a few 3d models of the level designs from the first Rayman.

[@pawenewman138]

Could have been a really cool game...

[@melasauce9943]

Amazing discovery! Really wish somebody could make a mod or a fan demo based on the Rayman 4 teaser...

[@user-yp5ih4hw7r]

Wonderful! As say Murphy in R3 "Will meet you in rayman 4"(

[@wonderpeter5231]

This is amazing man!!

[@thatlunardude7767]

This is amazing

[@HootsHugs101]

What's the song at 4:55 to 8:04? Shit slaps. Edit: It's The Canopy from Rayman 2

[@Best-YouTube-Channel]

This is some interesting shit. Makes me wonder what could've been if the project wasn't switched to a party game near the last minute.

[@kavariteraa2797]

Amazing discoveries, i wanted this Rayman 4 so much..

[@Gemmygod]

Looks like it might be possible to make the Rayman 4 we never got after all!

[@karimitickaeloogreattemlor3486]

*THIS IS IT! THAT'S IT!* THAT'S the Rayman 4 we were ALL COLLECTIVELY waiting for patiently for all these years! Why did they think it'd be a better idea to turn all this good shit into a party game? *W H Y.* Did they get lazy? Were they waiting for Michel Ancel to finish their Half-Life 3 equivalent (Beyond Good & Evil 2)? God fucking damnit Ubisoft you used to be good

[@dumdumsponge6568]

Words cant describe how happy i am

[@lostandfound6958]

This a real treasure trove. Thanks for all this. BTW what are the names of the music?

[@StarlightAnimations.]

this made my Year! 2021 💙 lets go Rayman

[@bloopahVIII]

this looks awesome

[@LEV-LAB]

we can get the full original game out of this

[@rileynoble8013]

This is insane. It was just way too ambitious I'd say

[@MarioCreeper22]

This is amazing!

[@autoscoot5964]

This would have been *so much* better.

[@dylanmearas4459]

I hope that you've resolved decides to go back to this project and release it for a future Rayman game

[@bostin1472]

This actually looks fun, damn..

[@The-official-knudschannel]

bro… that… was… AWESOME!! 🤩

[@levelmakertoiletpaperediti1778]

Finally,rayman 4

[@AdamMerlin]

This is going to make my soul hurt more then anything but I NEED to know (edit) wow yeah you can tell they rehashed this idea for the gameboy version basically.

[@nahuelpaillapi]

Oh man this is so awesome

[@sonjoshku6668]

Still wish rayman 4 was a thing

[@wantedasylum1091]

So it's now like a 3D Version of Raving Rabbids on the DS & GBA.

[@Hamburgaga]

Oh my god.

[@spinelandrodrigoandres8863]

YOOO RAYMAN 4 IS OUT

[@blargofallblargs3939]

If something like Rayman Redemption can happen, the potential of building a Rayman 4 is possible. Just a matter of putting similar pieces together and filling in the blanks I suppose, but that's easier said than done.

[@Ty-ru4rp]

Dude! i just came up with a brilliant idea for this game, okay have you guys/girls heard of sonic forces, you know when after you beat a boss parts of the world turn blue, well if i became a scripter or game developer, then the main gimmick of Rayman 4 is that you have the world covered with yellow (reference to rabbids invasion with the countries combining and forming a yellow rabbid) every time you finish all for that part of the world, the color changes back to default color and just like the original idea of rayman going to conflict to conflict, think of this like Mario 64 but it is fully open world and you have specific quest to do in order to get to the main boss, i also thinking that some mini bosses would be likely. That's just my idea though, so if someone would be able to make the scraped game i would be very happy. :)

[@ttk9548]

What programs does droolie use for this, can you tell me so I can try to find more things from the prototype

[@ilyaman8375]

Happy early 1 year anniversary Prototype Restoration Mod!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎊🎊🎊

[@powerkirbybomber6503]

Interesting! It would have been really cool to see an open world Rayman game. At least the various portable versions took elements from the original incarnation of Raving Rabbids (Mobile has the combat, the ability to run at high speeds and plunger gun, GBA has the original plot for the game and the exploration and DS has the costumes). Also, the game was always known as Rayman 4: Raving Rabbids but this video refers to them as separate games.

[@zachyouidiot]

thank you so much

[@VancesisDoesNot]

the more i was watching this video, the more sad i was getting that we got party game and then i guess rabbids ate rayman after all rabbids games that he was in

[@fluury]

amazing!

[@Mr.Feather130]

With all of the leftover stuff from the prototype version of Rayman raving rabbids that had been discovered,it made me wish that Ubisoft should delay the game for late 2007/early 2008 to have more development Time

[@tavieion]

Are the original rabbids modes like in the original trailer in the files or are they lost?

[@Tanizion]

this looked so much fun!..