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Earlier today, news leaked that a new Mario + Rabbids game was in the works, and Ubisoft officially announced the project during its E3 2021 showcase. The trailer shows Mario and gang flying through space before landing on a planet full of baddies, which includes a giant purple tentacle monster called Cursa.
Sparks of Hope is the sequel to Ubisoft’s 2017 release Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a fun and approachable tactics game that released on the Switch. The franchise sounds like an April fools joke that got out of hand, but the original title was actually really fun and full of surprisingly deep strategy.
Like the original game, Sparks of Hope is a strategy game in the vein of titles like Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown. We didn’t get a detailed look at the gameplay, but it seems like players will take turns moving their heroes across the battlefield and dishing out a variety attacks.
During the release trailer, we saw new weapons. Luigi is seen holding some kind of laser bow and arrow weapon, for example. New characters will also join Mario’s crew, such as a Rabbid version of Rosalina. Another type of ally are called Sparks. These creatures are combinations of Rabbids and Lumas; you won’t control them directly but they will lend their wild powers to our heroes, which means that they might be the source for learning new abilities and attacks.
Ubisoft said it’s excited to work on the game (duh), and that it would be expanding the franchise greatly with this entry. Mario now has an entire galaxy to save and will travel across the universe in a spaceship.
We didn’t get a long look at the game in action, but hopefully we’ll see more soon. Ubisoft plans to release Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope in 2022 on the Nintendo Switch.
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Source: Game Informer
