Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope co-creator Davide Soliani has told VGC in a recent interview that Ubisoft's comments about the sequel underperforming really hurt the team's morale. Soliani also confessed that Sparks of Hope was "way harder to develop" than the original game with its bigger and broader scope. A number of reviews criticised the sequel for its performance issues on the ailing Switch platform.
"The message that we received about how the game was faring was a bit hurtful for the morale of the team. because we just finished working for three and a half years and were super committed to creating a very good game. So, of course, it was not the kind of message that we wanted to receive back in those days."
"It was a bit hurtful, but nothing crazy. I think that's normal… every development team is proud of what they are doing and always searching for encouraging words, which in that situation, was maybe needed. It was a bit harsh on the team, but nothing that we didn't solve by talking internally back when we were in the company."
"Because the first one was a big success, Sparks of Hope was way harder to develop than Kingdom Battle.
"There was too much overthinking about it all around me. So to me it was a bit… it was still a joy, it was a wonderful experience because I always loved working with Nintendo and I will always will."
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Thanks to Greatsong1 for the news tip!
