The Raving Rabbids franchise known in France as Les Lapins Crétins

The Raving Rabbids franchise, known in France as Les Lapins Crétins, is a videogame franchise spin off from the Rayman series, which consists mainly of party games, though also includes some platform games and a fighting game. The series focus on large, crazy rabbits known as Rabbids, who like to cause havoc and mischief and yell "BWAAAH!" whenever they experience adrenaline rushes.

Though they were initially shown as part of the Rayman series of games, the popularity of the characters, aided by various viral videos and media appearances, led Raving Rabbids to become its own separate franchise, dropping the Rayman name as of 2009's Rabbids Go Home.[1][2] The Rabbids have made several appearances in non-Rayman games as well, such as Red Steel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, and Watch Dogs. The song "Here Comes the Hotstepper" in Just Dance 2 includes a Rabbid who attempts to dance with the choreographer. There has also been a Raving Rabbids themed version of the card game Jungle Speed, which was released in France, a TV show and a feature film, that is under development.

Concept and creation

The earliest Rayman 4 trailers depicted menacing and zombie-like 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, and viral videos were created, the rabbits slowly evolved into 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 recent video review, project lead Loïc Gounon confirmed the possibility of splitting the Rayman and Rabbid series apart, mentioning that the Rabbids seem to appeal more to younger gamers, due to its slapstick humor and minigames deviating from the Rayman series' more fantasy-oriented gameplay.[5]