Raving Rabbids

The earliest Rayman 4 trailers depicted menacing rabbits, simply appearing from underground with a blank stare in various shapes and forms, smaller eyes and furry. At this point, trailers showed the game as an adventure game with fight stages, where Rayman would need to punch and kick himself kung fu style through a horde of zombie-bunnies. As the game concept evolved, from one of a central objective to minigames, a series of viral videos were created by Marketing Manager Adrian Lacey and Animator Charles Beirnaert which became incredibly successful on the new media platform YouTube. The rabbits slowly evolved into various merchandising products such as the Rabbid figures, which were much more conscious and amusing, changing from merely being enemies to fight through into more memorable characters with various traits and quirks. Rayman creator Michel Ancel described the bunnies as "vicious, but at the same time [...] totally stupid".[4] In a video interview, project lead Loïc Gounon confirmed the possibility of splitting the Rayman and Rabbid series apart, mentioning that the Rabbids "managed to hit a bit more adult and a bit more older audience than the previous Raymans".[5]

Rabbids – Rabbids are wild rabbit-like creatures who like to cause havoc and mischief on Rayman's world (where they came from), the human world, and others and are gibberish speaking and yell "BWAH!" whenever they experience adrenaline rushes. They were originally the antagonists; however, due to increase in popularity, they became the protagonists in Rabbids Go Home.

Rayman – the main protagonist of the first three games. He always foils the Rabbids' evil plans. When the Rabbids became the protagonists of the franchise, Rayman was dropped, but continues to appear in his own games.

Professor Barranco III – the supreme leader of the Rabbids who planned out all of their invasions on Rayman's world, Earth and others. He is seen in the games Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Rabbids: Travel in Time and Rabbids: Alive and Kicking as the main antagonist (despite having a minor role in RRR 2 and RTiT). He is one of the rare smart Rabbids to exist, but can be easily fooled as well. In RAaK he has a Rabbid scientist as his second in command, who would later go on to become a major character in the TV series.

Serguei – Serguei is the main villain of Rayman Raving Rabbids. He is a large, black rabbid who abducted Rayman and the Globox kids and forced them to take part in the Rabbids Olympics filled with deadly challenges. In the end, Rayman manages to escape and free most of the Globox kids. It is unknown what happens to Serguei at that point, though his absence in further games suggest that he was relieved of his duties due to failure in keeping Rayman.

The Semi-Leaders – the Semi-leaders are fat, lazy and angry Rabbids who serve as the secondary antagonists of Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. They constantly force the Rabbids to bring them food and don't do pretty much anything other than sitting or lying around and keeping things in check. They each have different themes in clothing.

The Rabbids from the Raving Rabbids series became massively popular both through the teaser trailers and the game itself. IGN has stated that the Rabbids have "more personality and charisma than 10 of the most popular video game mascots combined",[22] and that the bunnies have literally "upstaged Rayman himself".[1] GameSpot has noted, "The Rabbids themselves are almost exclusively responsible for [selling the game's humor], as they are, without a doubt, hysterical. They're adorably designed, with their dumb stares, high-pitched shrieks, and a penchant for taking comedic bumps."[2]

The success of the Rabbid characters led the developers to create more games in the franchise, and eventually even remove Rayman from them entirely. This was first hinted at in the launch trailer of the first game, where Rayman, despite being the title character, only appears for a fraction of a second, only to be squashed flat by a couch taken over by Rabbids. In Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Rayman disguises himself as a Rabbid, causing the game to put more emphasis on them than on Rayman himself. Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party was considered further evidence, as Rayman, who is no longer playable, only appears in the game's cutscenes although he does make a couple cameos and references in the gameplay of some minigames, and is more scared and annoyed by the Rabbids despite his bravery against the Rabbids in Rayman Raving Rabbids. This was then proven to be true with the announcement of Rabbids Go Home, which does not feature Rayman at all and doesn't explain what happened to him in the previous Rabbids game.

The Rayman series' genre shift and decline in critical acclaim has been linked to Rabbids by fans and critics. Before Rabbids Go Home's release, when asked about why Rayman was omitted, director Jacques Exertier confirmed that Rayman would return for more action-adventure video games.[23] A Rayman-only game was released on March 1, 2011, but was merely a Nintendo 3DS re-release of Rayman 2: The Great Escape, titled Rayman 3D. However, Rayman Origins, a new Rayman game, was released in 2011 followed by a sequel, Rayman Legends released in September 2013. Both games were released to critical acclaim.

The music style for the franchise was created by composer Mark Griskey. Mark worked with Audio Director Yoan Fanise to define the comedic style of the early games and the style was continued with the further versions of the franchise. [24]

• Official website