It’s been 13 years since the last Rayman game, and now, Rayman Legends Retold is bringing it to a new generation of consoles and fans. Ubisoft has explained that the new title is a retelling of Rayman Legends. While the game remakes the 2013 platformer, Rayman Legends Retold serves up a classic to a new generation of consoles and fans, welcoming players with confectionery celebration, calaveras, and cortadillos.
Rayman Legends Retold is co-developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and Ubisoft Milan, the two studios behind the Rayman IP. The studios give Rayman Legends an art overhaul, pulling the former 2D side-scroller into 3D animation and reimagining the levels to meet modern expectations, impacting art direction, difficulty, mechanics, and more.
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During the three-hour media preview, we explored multiple worlds, including “Mystic Mesa” (a reimagining of “Fiesta De Los Muertos”) and the brand-new world called “Land of the Livid Dead”. The takeaway from playing through the different modes present in every world is that Rayman Legends Retold is still hitting that sweet spot of challenging platform mechanics.
With every level in the worlds getting more challenging, either with rhythm, speed, or how many mechanics you need to combine, Rayman Legends Retold is easy to lose yourself in, even if you’re repeatedly dying. But with new accessibility options that trigger depending on the number of deaths you’ve had popping up, players have agency to use the new options or keep on the more challenging path.
Rayman Legends Retold puts Mexico at the center of creativity with “Mystic Mesa.”
The game’s co-op nature inspires adults to play with their children and friends. The accessibility features help those who need them and draw in gamers of all skill and experience. These optional features include an invincibility shield called Fairy’s Blessing and hearts that drop to give you multiple deaths instead of one-and-done, making it easier to pull in new audiences while keeping the difficulty for those who want it.
Those accessibility changes were just one of the ways that Ubisoft Montpellier and Milan have brought Rayman Legends into 2026. Another way was making Mexico absolutely scrumptious with “Mystic Mesa.” While the world of “Mystic Mesa” is vibrant and enticing on its own, just from a surface-level view, the bevy of mechanics we see in this one world all compound into an exciting boss battle.
The world features two musical levels: one playing “Marcarena” and the other playing a mariachi version of “Eye of the Tiger.” Both push players to time their attacks, jumps, double jumps, and other elements to the beat. The music sets the tempo, and it’s nonnegotiable, but that’s part of the charm. Getting into the rhythm of the platforming section can be difficult, but, like any muscle, it gets easier with repetition. And by repetition, I mean dying and trying again.
Rayman Legends Retold meets its players with inventive platforming levels set in distinct worlds. As you progress through the worlds, the levels ask more and more of you. By introducing new concepts, each level feels different. Even if the background or aesthetic feels similar, every level plays differently.
Between my time at this three-hour media preview and seeing co-op play during Summer Game Fest, it’s easy to say that Rayman Legends Retold has everything it needs to be one of the best platformers released. It’s challenging, thoughtful, and the humor is spot-on. This last part of the equation can go entirely wrong if it’s not handled correctly.
Rayman’s DNA as a property is humor, absurdity, camp, and exaggeration. We see it in every world and character. But that also risks feeling like we’re “mocking” the culture on display. Here, though, in “Mystic Mesa,” the standout level from our demo, the humor and exaggeration feel campy at their core.
Simplifying a culture to its food can come off badly. In fact, telling people that we’re more than our food is something that Mexican-Americans have to deal with constantly in media representation. But sometimes, a piece of media gets it right. That’s “Mystic Mesa.” With calaveras, mariachis, a luchador boss, guacamole, papel picado, and entire levels made out of cortadillo (the Mexican iced sprinkle cake that influencers have gentrified as “dot cake”), there is no shortage of Mexican shorthand across “Mystic Mesa.”
“Mystic Mesa” may focus on cuisine, but that humor blends perfectly with the mechanics.
The change from “Fiesta De Los Muertos” to “Mystic Mesa” doesn’t mean that we’re not seeing a giant Día de Muertos celebration. With the decorated skeletons and other elements, it’s clear that we still are. But with “Día de Muertos” now on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the studios are giving the holiday some reverence.
The way that Mexican culture has been used to craft “Mystic Mesa” may feel more Mexican-American than anything, but that’s not inherently bad. Pieces of Mexican culture show up pretty much everywhere, and the luchador’s design would make Jorge Gutierrez proud.
By sticking to simple elements that many already think about when they think about the country and its culture, Ubisoft is able to use Rayman’s absurdity to pull it squarely into a campy territory that always feels like you’re in on the joke if you’re of the culture, and for me that isn’t always the experience. But being in on the joke has more to do with the game design behind “Mystic Mesa” than anything else.
The level design itself is what makes “Mystic Mesa” a success. While developing Rayman Legends Retold and switching from 2D to 3D, the developers at Ubisoft Montpellier and Milan had the chance to remake the worlds in a more grounded, connected way. With a new narrative focus, the team connected levels within each world, making everything feel cohesive and almost continuous.
Instead of shoving in just about everything that can inspire you from Mexican cuisine, everything added has a specific purpose. Mexican delicacies are on display, and they each serve a purpose. For example, the cake levels make the player not only jump, but also control Murphy as he flies around. You need to use him to eat through the cake so that you can pass through the section. But Murphy can eat too much and drop you to your death, or not eat enough, getting you stuck as the cake comes back.
The interaction makes the cake itself matter more than just being there as set dressing. On top of that, Murphy also shows up again to spew guac on the chip walls to let you stick to them. These little notes of humor don’t do much to teach anyone about Mexico, and they don’t have to. Instead, it’s the artistic choices in “Mystic Mesa’s” construction that showcase important gameplay design.
Additionally, each level of “Mystic Mesa” orbits the Luchadore, with him popping up strategically to platform in the rhythm sections or open up a path. But when you take the dragon ride through “Mystic Mesa,” you see a town square with calavera (sugar skull) inspired skeletons, Mexican architecture, and the vibrancy of a fiesta. The town itself is fun, fresh, and the accompanying music makes the dragon ride feel exciting.
The timing elements in the platforming remain necessary even when you’re on the dragon, with its isometric camera view and limited mobility. Understanding when to fire the dragon’s breath and move left, right, up, and down is essential to progressing through the area. But what’s fun about it is the bright colors and life. Too often, media treats Mexico as a culture living in sepia tones, but in Rayman Legends Retold, it has a vibrancy that just makes me happy.
Rayman Legends Retold’s luchador design captures what we see in Mexican animation from Jorge Gutierrez.
The only issue with “Mystic Mesa” is the choice to use only “Marcarena” and a mariachi version of an English song. With so many mariachi hits in the public consciousness, many of which even a random non-Mexican country singer in Texas would know. The song choices are the one place where Ubisoft is taking a bigger “risk” (it’s not really a risk when you consider the strength of Latino buying power in the United States, one of Ubisoft’s regions).
I raced through each of the levels to make it to the second music level, only to be greeted by a mariachi rendition of “Eye of the Tiger.” And while that’s fun, it’s the one place where Mexico’s aesthetic seems more important than anything else. It’s a fun song and a great rendition, but it’s also one of the places where a little more authentic Mexican flair would have sealed the deal on the game’s approach.
That said, the joy that “Mystic Mesa” brings is too high to be knocked down entirely by one wish. Instead, it’s a world in Rayman Legends Retold that I want to come back to and find every secret in. Funny, fun, and a good, challenging time, this game is shaping up to be one of the best platformers out there.
