they turned him into a marketable plushie again
Apparently in these last few weeks before Rayman Legends Retold releases, there's going to be a Rayman plushie hitting the shelves in stores. I remember seeing merch of the Rabbids back in the mid-2010s while shopping with my Grammy M and my sibling, picking one up, it screaming, and then throwing it onto the others on the shelf that also started screaming. Good times. I always hated the Rabbids when I was younger, but to be honest? They're a lot more fun than the Minions.
Anyway. That Rayman plushie looks super cute. I'm hoping they'll put them for sale here in the States, perhaps with the other main characters in the game? I think all of them would look cute as plushies, and Murfy especially would be hilarious to throw around. "COMMENT ÇA VA LA SAUCISSE—" I punt him. I've never been able to see Rayman merch where I lived growing up, so fans always have to improvise. To see merch now makes my 11-y/o self very very happy!
On the other hand, now that Rayman is getting merch (and a shitton of influencer marketing bs, do y'all even know how to talk about Rayman ffs), it makes me want to DIY even more, especially when the merch they release doesn't fit the vision that I saw. I want costumes of my faves, I want blankets and pillows and string lights. I want an official ukulele and songbook (the soundtracks for Origins and Legends have the ukulele fitting seamlessly into a noticeable amount of tracks). That Rayman hoodie they've distributed a few times should have no branding or logos on it, and the circle representing Rayman's power should be front and center, not shrunk and over the collarbone. Globox, Barbara and the teensies should also have merchandise, as they would make bank and then group costumes would exist. What if someone is the world's normalest, most mentally stable Globox fan? They should be able to get a little figurine of him without selling a hand and a foot to get the board game.
And lastly, on the topic of the boardgame and collector's items overall, it's very smarmy and weird that a AAA gaming company is contracting companies commonly associated with indie merch to sell merchandise for their game. Rayman has been around forever. He used to have happy meal toys with McDonald's. The fact that they can't make their merch mainstream and accessible to everyone, instead gatekeeping through limited-edition collabs with YouTooz and a board game that uses a pre-order scheme is disconcerting at best. It makes the merch a collector's status for the wealthy, like this rare material display is what makes someone a true Rayman fan. It's like when Ubisoft held a video contest for Rayman, and the winner was... someone who happened to own a shitton of merch and showed it off in a semi-creative stop-motion animation. I hate it here.
Then again, Ubisoft is Ubisoft, especially present-day Ubisoft, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.