Rayman 4

Rayman Raving Rabbids is a party video game. Players control Rayman as he must partake in a series of minigames. On the hub world, players control Rayman from a third-person perspective where he is presented five minigames, consisting of three random minigames, a dancing rhythm game featuring pop culture songs, and another final challenge in order to proceed the story. Three minigames must be completed to proceed to the final challenge.

Each minigame plays differently, and mostly focuses on using the Wii Remote and Nunchuck (Wii) in a frantic manner to achieve the required score. Minigames can range from muscle memory games to sports to puzzles. The final challenge either features a "bunny hunt" or a "warthog race". Bunny hunts follow Rayman from a first-person perspective to shoot Rabbids with plungers and achieve a high score while maintaining their hit points. Warthog races follow Rayman as he must race a warthog and reach first place after three laps, with a limited number of boosts to help.

While Rayman is having a picnic with some of Globox's children, it is interrupted by an earthquake and the Baby Globoxes sink into the ground, only for three Rabbids to emerge. The Rabbids' commander Sergueï kidnaps Rayman and throws him in an arena with Rabbids. To survive and rescue the baby Globoxes, Rayman begrudgingly partakes in their trials. After a while, Sergueï takes him to his cell and gives him a plunger.

Despite initially being hostile towards Rayman, they became bored and start to root for him instead later on, and eventually he becomes popular among the Rabbids as they cheer him. In addition, they also make his jail cell more hospitable.

In 2005, Phoenix Interactive Entertainment, a studio who also developed King Kong for the PlayStation Portable initially began development of Rayman 4. The game was intended to capture elements from the 1995 video game Rayman and the characters are self-aware that they exist inside a video game and being controlled by players from the outside world. The game used Pixar as the main source of inspiration for the plot.

The game was developed for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. The studio spent ten months developing it before Nintendo announced the Wii, which members of Ubisoft worried that the seventh generation consoles could give negative effects to the performance of the game, and made the decision to restart development. A source code of Rayman 4's prototype was leaked online on 4chan on December 24, 2022, with fans of the Rayman series quickly obtaining the files.

Rayman Raving Rabbids received generally positive reviews from critics. IGN writer Matt Casamassina complimented the game's impressive sense of humor and a heavy emphasis on fun, as well as the design of the Rabbids and the game in general. Reviewers in general found these versions to play at an inferior level to the Wii version due to the game's controls having been optimized with the Wii in mind. GameSpot also echoed these thoughts, praising the game's creativity, implementation of the Wii's features as well as the game's soundtrack, though they admitted that the Xbox 360 version was inferior due to its controls.

Following the game's positive success, two further sequels were released, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 and Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party in 2007 and 2008, after TV Party, Ubisoft abandoned the Rayman title and character beginning with the 2009 game Rabbids Go Home.

In October 2017, series' creator Michel Ancel posted on Instagram that he wants Rayman 4 to happen.