Rayman has played second fiddle to the Marios, Links, and Master Chiefs of the video game world, but that may soon change judging by this leaked trailer for Rayman Legends on the Wii U from french website Gamekult. Keep your eyes glued until the final seconds to see why our interest in Nintendo's next machine just kicked up a notch or two:
Pretty cool, no? It appears Wii U's tablet controller may indeed be capable of porting real world objects into the game using Skylanders-esque RFID tag technology. There have been rumblings of this feature earlier this year (via Joystiq), but this is the first we've seen it in action. On the positive side, this opens up a ton of potential (Assassin's Creed cameo?), but it also blows open the door for each Nintendo game to be sold with its own line of toys.
The trailer also hints at other Wii U functionality. For one, it indicates only a single Wii U tablet will be assigned to the Wii U home base, which is something Nintendo has more or less confirmed already (E3 2011: Don't worry, extra Wii U controllers might not cost you a thing (because you might not be able to buy them). Secondly, those visuals are looking pretty clean on the tablet. Mind you, we'll have to wait until E3 2012 to make a hands-on judgement, but consider us optimistic.
As for the game itself, Rayman Legends is all but official. This week, Ubisoft was spotted registering two domains through Whois: Rayman-Legends.com and RaymanLegends.com. Unless the studio is working on a game starring Ray Manlegends, this is a shut case. Now the question becomes: When can we play it?
UPDATE: The Official Nintendo Magazine has posted a statement from Ubisoft stating the video does reflect Rayman's final product, but rather what the game is capable of achieving.
"This video was intended as a purely internal demonstrative video, and in NO way represents the final game, the final console or their features," insisted the studio, explaining, "This video was destined for internal production teams who often create game prototypes with work in progress development kits. Ubisoft confirms the development of Rayman Legends handled by Michel Ancel and his team in Montpellier."
