'Mario + Rabbids' Producer Cristina Nava has followed director Davide Soliani in quitting Ubisoft.
Mario and Rabbids' future is hanging in the balance as a second team member departs Ubisoft
Just a month after the creative director on both ‘Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle’ and the most recent ‘Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope’ alled it quits, his colleague has announced her depature.
Nava announced on X on Monday (02.09.24): "August 30th, the release day of #StarWarsOutlaws, also marked my last day at Ubisoft.
I have decided to leave Ubisoft Milan, where I spent 16 incredible years with incredible people, to write a new chapter in my story—a chapter I’m not ready to share yet. I thank you all."
She continued: "I’ve been truly blessed to collaborate with amazingly talented colleagues. Together, we created oddball games like the Mario + Rabbids saga in partnership with Nintendo. When you say a dream come true!
I wish you all the best, my friends, in your future endeavors.
"And thank you to all the players who have shown their love all these years."
In his own statement, Soliani said: “Hi all folks. After 25 years, 11 of which beautifully spent working with Nintendo on Mario+Rabbids along the company of our incredible community of players, I have decided to leave Ubisoft to embark on a new adventure. I can’t say more now. Thanks a lot for everything, truly.”
The official Ubisoft account quickly responded to the news and wished the industry veteran good luck for his upcoming “journey”.
The company tweeted: “Thank you so much for all your incredible work Davide! It's our turn to cry
this time (sic). Best wishes for the worlds you'll journey through next!”
Both of Soliani’s titles were received well by players and critics alike upon their releases, though Ubisoft later conceded the second game had not met their expectations, with CEO Yves Guillemot admitting the business “should have waited” for the next Nintendo Switch console.
In a statement, he said: “We had already released a ‘Mario Rabbids’ game [on Switch], so by doing another we had two similar experiences on one machine. On Nintendo, games like this never die. There are 25 Mario games on Switch.
“Nintendo [has advised] that it's better to do one iteration on each machine. We were a bit too early, we should have waited.”