A new report claims Ubisoft Milan — the studio behind the acclaimed Mario + Rabbids games — came agonizingly close to making a Legend of Zelda spin-off starring Ganondorf. Instead, the project died at the prototype stage, key developers walked out the door, and the Nintendo-Ubisoft partnership quietly wound down.
Project Goliath: The Pitch Nintendo Liked
Per a September 24 report from Insider Gaming (corroborated by Kotaku and Eurogamer), Ubisoft Milan began working on the pitch in late 2022, shortly after Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope launched. Despite that sequel’s modest sales, Nintendo and Ubisoft began discussing another collaboration soon after — and Mario + Rabbids co-creator Davide Soliani had considerably greater ambitions this time. The team spent the winter developing “what they deemed the perfect pitch” for Project Goliath: a Zelda spin-off starring a brand-new, never-before-seen protagonist, shown to Nintendo in early 2023.
Nintendo reportedly liked the concept — but suggested one huge change: make Ganondorf, the series’ biggest villain, the lead character.
The Prototype Nintendo Rejected
A small team led by Soliani spent the year building the prototype, which was shown to Nintendo in November 2023. Nintendo rejected it — for reasons that reportedly remain unclear even to those involved. Ubisoft then tried pitching other projects built on Nintendo IP, rumored to range from a Star Fox game to another Mario spin-off, but “between late 2023 and early 2024, conversations between Nintendo and Ubisoft began to break down.” Ubisoft declined to comment on the report.
The Departures That Followed
With Goliath dead, team members were dispersed across the wider company — and the human cost followed. Soliani, a 25-year Ubisoft veteran, left the publisher in July 2024 alongside fellow developers Cristina Nava and Gian Marco Zanna, later explaining that an ambitious project they believed in never “got to see the light of day.” The group founded a new studio, Day 4 Night, now working on the charming-looking platformer Bradley the Badger. Ubisoft Milan, meanwhile, has been collaborating with Ubisoft Montpellier on a new Rayman project.
As for Ganondorf, his shot at a leading role remains a what-could-have-been — while Nintendo’s actual Zelda plans roll on, including November’s Ocarina of Time remake on Switch 2. Whether the idea ever resurfaces, in the “other place and time” Eurogamer muses about, is now Nintendo’s call alone.