Rayman: Revenge of the Dark

Rayman: Revenge of the Dark is a fangame currently in development by a small team led by Adsolution. It is intended to be a prequel to Rayman 2 and a sequel to the original game, bridging the events between the two while telling an original story.

While no public playable versions have been released (outside of an environmental stress test in 2012), it is the oldest 3D Rayman fangame, having begun development in 2009, and has gone through many iterations. The current version began development in 2020 and is projected to be the final.

Development

Concepts for the game date back as far as 2005, as a 2D platformer titled Rayman & Moskito, where Rayman and Bzzit would team up in a co-op adventure to save the latter's family from Dark Rayman; though this version only existed in concept across various sketchbooks.

In 2009, the idea for the game was reworked, dawning its current name. Unsatisfied with the fact most 3D indie titles at the time had very primitive graphics, Adsolution wanted to create a 3D game that would rival AAA titles in production quality, and therefore began development as a mod of Crytek's first-person shooter video game Crysis, running on CryEngine 2. Rayman's first model (and all modelling for the game henceforth) was created in 3ds Max 2008, mostly composed of distorted primitives. Initially skinned to Crysis' base human rig, the model shared said rig's animations and sound effects, resulting in an awkward and humourous appearance. In early 2010 the original model was scrapped in favour of a NURBS-smoothed version of Rayman's model from Rayman Arena that incorporated custom animations and movement for the first time.

In 2011 the project migrated to the newly-released standalone version of CryEngine, along with a new, much higher-quality player model, incorporating a proper skeleton rig and morph targets for detailed facial animation.