Making a point (click to enlarge)

Last week's news that Rayman Legends is going multi-platform and is delayed to September was disappointing for a lot of Wii U owners. While the loss of exclusivity was a blow, it was arguably the seemingly unnecessary delay to a finished game that enraged many. We saw an outraged anonymous forum post from someone claiming to be a developer on the game, and fans took to launching online petitions to see the original release date brought back for Wii U.

In a surprising and high-profile twist, Rayman creator and respected industry veteran Michel Ancel has appeared alongside his development team in pictures protesting the decision to delay the Wii U release, with a stylishly drawn banner saying "Release Rayman. Support Ubisoft Montpelier" in French. A tearful Rayman says "please", while assorted banners in the image's background say "Wii U", "Rayman", "Michel Ancel" and "28/02/13", the latter being the original Wii U release date.

At the time of writing Ubisoft has not responded with a comment, but the presence of Ancel and his dev team in these pictures — which they surely knew would draw a lot of attention — is a fairly direct challenge to the publisher. It should also give hope to fans protesting for the Wii U release to return and arrive in the coming weeks.

A team unified (click to enlarge)

We'll keep an eye out and update with any Ubisoft responses, but we'd love to read your thoughts on this in the comments below.

[source eurogamer.net]