Three Music Legends Collaborated on One Nintendo Game. Sparks Flew

The reception to Kingdom Battle made Brillaud, Soliani, and Kirkhope decide to make a sequel. What Nintendo does with all of its sequels is go bigger.

Grant is the musical identity of the first game, so we wanted to keep him. He brought the silliness of the Rabbids, Grant being Grant, and these big, epic, and memorable narrative moments to the game.

Brillaud wanted to add new elements of musical color to the score because the game has a darker tone. This was important because of the diverse landscapes of the worlds you explore. Brillaud thought he would try and get two more composers on board.

"As a director, I needed new colors, and we were lucky to have both of them say yes." It's a perfect mix of styles.

Coker is responsible for driving the emotional atmosphere in Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Halo Infinite, while industry veteranyoko Shimomura is best known for her signature melody in games such as Street Fighter II, Kingdom Hearts, and Legend of the

In an email to WIRED, Shimomura said he was happy to work on Mario again, to work with Ubisoft, and to work with great composers. I'm incredibly fortunate to have worked on this project.

It was a dream come true for Coker to be able to write music for a Mario game. The potential to write music that he isn't typically used to was one of the reasons he was so excited to work on the project.

He tells WIRED that when he heard his tracks, they were unlike anything on his resume. If you are a composer or a musician, you will hear a lot of interesting and fun stuff going on here.

There is a specific example in the music he wrote for one of the game's later planets that is a botanical garden filled with alien colors. I was like, 'Wait, what?!' because Romain was like, 'What if we explore something slightly French and impressionistic here'. Do you mean in a MarioRabbids game? I wasn't expecting that kind of thinking from this, and that's exciting as a composer.