Video Game / Raving Rabbids

"BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Raving Rabbids is a video game series published by Ubisoft Entertainment. It was originally a spinoff minigame-centric series based on Rayman, but its popularity quickly escalated to surpass that of Rayman himself. It later became its own standalone franchise starting with Rabbids Go Home.

The first game in the series is entitled Rayman Raving Rabbids. In this first installment, the limbless hero Rayman was captured by the Rabbids and forced to participate in various absurd mini-games in a gladiator-style arena to entertain the moronic bunny masses. As you progress through the game, Rayman uses the plungers he receives as rewards for completing minigames (It makes sense in... Wait… no, it doesn't make sense at all!) to build a makeshift ladder and escape through a high window. Even though he escapes, the game still has a rather silly Downer Ending, as Rayman realizes afterwards that he forgot to rescue the baby Globoxes imprisoned by the Rabbids. And then he got stuck in a hole.

The second game, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, is set with the Rabbids launching a full-scale invasion on Earth. Rayman infiltrates the operation by dressing up as a Rabbid and following them to Earth in order to stop their plans of taking over the foreign planet. The game is more based around party-style multiplayer gameplay, and beyond the opening introduction the plot disappears, even going so far to not include an ending sequence or automatic "end-of-game" credits roll. However, it is shown that the Rabbids are thwarted after selecting the credits roll, as several signs around the world show that no submarine parking is allowed. Thus, the rabbids leave.

Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party is the third game in the series. In this game, Rayman is for the first time only present in the cutscenes and is not a playable character, further pushing the Rabbids series away from its roots. The game begins with Rayman running away from a mob of Rabbids and hiding in a nearby house. Lightning strikes the Rabbids outside, mysteriously trapping them inside of the TV of the house Rayman takes refuge in. The TV remains constantly powered up and works even if it is unplugged, and the cutscenes of the game consist of Rayman attempting to destroy or get rid of the TV. The gameplay itself is set inside the television as the Rabbids participate in various minigames themed after the different TV channels and programs. The further the game progresses, the more frustrated Rayman becomes by the constant noise and distraction of the TV and attempts to get rid of it in several different ways, causing gradual damage to the television and the screen to crack further and further. By the end, Rayman becomes angry enough to take off his shoe (and his foot, incidentally) and throw it at the TV, which finally breaks, releasing the Rabbids inside and causing the chase from the beginning of the game to start all over again.

The fourth installment of the series is entitled Rabbids Go Home and deviates greatly from the previous titles by being an item-collecting platformer instead of a minigame collection, and it is the first time the player teams up with the Rabbids. In this game, the Rabbids are living in a junkyard and become nostalgic for home. Since they're stupid and forgetful, they don't know where their home is — but then decide that (1) their home is the Moon, and (2) they need to build a pile of junk so they can climb to it. To get stuff for their pile, they raid a nearby human city, stealing everything they can and putting it into a shopping cart. The humans, who naturally don't take very kindly to this, form an organization known as the 'Verminators' to exterminate the Rabbids and get back all the stuff they've stolen. The successful ending of the game shows the Rabbids making their pile big enough to indeed seemingly reach the moon, but right as they're discovering that it isn't really in the sky, the Verminators bomb their huge pile. The pile of stuff goes flying into space, Rabbids included, and the Rabbids reach their 'home' in orbit around the moon. Needless to say, Rayman doesn't appear in this story at all.

The latest games in the series, Raving Rabbids Travel In Time and Raving Rabbids: Alive & Kicking, are a return to the mini-game collection of the earlier titles. The latter of the two is exclusive to the Xbox 360, designed for the Kinect, and is the first game in the series not to appear on a Nintendo Console. These games do not include Rayman, and since another game entitled Rayman Origins has since been released with no sight or even mention of Rabbids, the two can safely be considered separate series.

Nickelodeon obtained the rights to making an animated series about the creatures and co-produced it alongside Ubisoft. The show, Rabbids Invasion, began airing in July 2013. A full-length movie under Sony and Ubisoft was announced in 2014.

At E3 2017 it was announced that the series was having a crossover game with Super Mario Bros.. Unlike the other Raving Rabbid games, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a tactical adventure game. The game released in August 29 2017, and eventually, a sequel to the crossover, titled as Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, was announced on June 2021 and released on October 20 of the same year.

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Games in the Series

Rayman Raving Rabbids

• Rayman Raving Rabbids: Wii, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PC
• Rayman Raving Rabbids 2: Wii, Nintendo DS, PC
• Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party: Wii, Nintendo DS

Raving Rabbids

• Rabbids Go Home: Wii, Nintendo DS, PC
• Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time: Wii, Nintendo 3DS
• Raving Rabbids: Alive and Kicking: Xbox 360 Kinect
• Rabbids Land: Wii U
• Rabbids Invasion: The Interactive TV Show: PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
• Virtual Rabbids: The Big Plan: Google Daydream
• Rabbids: Party of Legends (2020 in China (Switch only), 2022 worldwide): Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Google Stadia

Handheld games

• Rayman Raving Rabbids: Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance (the only games that are actual platformers featuring Rayman and the Rabbids when the series were one in the same and the closest thing to the original concept the fourth Rayman game was conceived as before it was turned into a mini-game collection)
• Rabbids Rumble: Nintendo 3DS
• Rabbids Big Bang: iOS, Android
• Rabbids Heroes: iOS, Android
• Rabbids Crazy Rush (2017): iOS, Android
• Rabbids Wild Rush (2020): iOS, Android

Spinoffs and crossovers

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up: Wii (Three different Rabbids appear as Guest Fighters to cross over with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
• Super Brawl 3: Good vs. Evil: Adobe Flash web browser game, Nickelodeon crossover Fighting Game featuring the Rabbids on the "Evil" side thanks to Rabbids Invasion airing on the network. In doing so, they managed to cross over with the TMNT once again.
• Rayman Adventures: iOS, Android (Rabbids appear as enemies during seasonal events)
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle: Nintendo Switch (Crossover with Nintendo's Super Mario Bros.)
  • Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope: Nintendo Switch
• Rabbids Coding - a free Programming Game.

The Rabbids Mini-Game series show examples of:

• Alliterative Title: (Rayman) Raving Rabbids.
• Amusing Injuries: The professor Rabbid in the first game has this.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: ...and music and plungers. But seriously, Rabbids cosplay a lot.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In the first game, although Rayman successfully escapes their captivity, the Rabbids ultimately suffer no consequences and Rayman is left unable to save the baby Globoxes.
• Bird-Poop Gag: Happens in the original game; see Chekhov's Gag.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Rabbids are this in spades. Almost like they're from space or something...
• Burping Contest: One of the minigames in Rayman Raving Rabbids 2.
• Butt-Monkey: Rayman in TV Party.
  • Among the Rabbids is also the Professor, with Amusing Injuries to boot. Mini-games "Bunnies Don't Know How To Play Soccer" and "Bunnies Are Overly Sensitive" are all about causing him pain on purpose.
  • Same could be said for all of the rabbids, really, as they have horrible dental hygiene, hit each other with weapons and non-weapons alike, and you are invited to hit them with shovels and hammer, among others. Over 50% of the mini-games are all about causing them pain one way or another. Then again, it's not like they protest.
• Casual Video Game: The first three are basically a minigame fest, but starting with Rabbids Go Home the games get more adventurous.
• Catchphrase: "BWAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" ^note also DAAAAAAAAHHHHH!. Actually more of a Catch Yell.
• Chaotic Stupid: The rabbids act more 'evil' in the first game, but otherwise fit this to a T.
• Characterization Marches On: In early games, the Rabbids were evil, Ax-Crazy, Too Dumb to Live, and they just messed with Rayman to entertain them. In later works (especially in Rabbids Go Home and Rabbids Invasion), they're still Too Dumb to Live, but more in the Cloudcuckoolander sense. They also don't wreak havoc with malicious intent; they just do what they feel like doing, and while they're still a bit aggressive, it's less prominent and they seem a lot calmer. Their talent for dancing has been toned down since their first spin-off game.
• Chekhov's Gag: In the original game, whenever you check to see your current progress on the plunger ladder to escape, a bird comes through the window and flies around before pooping on Rayman's nose. When you finally get all the plungers, this gag looks as if it's about to happen again as it normally would... then Rayman dodges the poop and grabs the bird, and nails a plunger on its rear end.
• Childish Tooth Gap: They act like overgrown kids and all have large gaps between their two teeth.
• Clark Kenting: Rayman does this in Raving Rabbids 2. Justified because the Rabbids are specifically presented as insanely stupid.
• Compilation Re-release: One is available of the first three games.
• Cool, but Stupid: One of the shows in TV Party is called Incredible But Stupid!
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Despite their cuteness, you will get tired of the Rabbids due to their yelling.
• Demoted to Extra: Despite being the titular character, Rayman has had a minor role from Raving Rabbids 2 onward, which has since deteriorated to the point that he's no longer a part of the series at all. Perhaps the best example of this is Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party, where Rayman isn't even in any of the actual gameplay—he's only seen in the cutscenes.
• The Ditz: The Rabbids are adorably moronic. This is particularly pronounced in the "Bunnies can't [X]..." advertisements, where the Rabbids comically fail at tasks due to their own stupidity and lack of understanding.
• The Dog Bites Back: The GBA plot of the first game involves around this. The Rabbids started out as friendly animals that got tired of other animals bullying them, so they took revenge by taking over and starting a invading army.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • They were originally explicitly from Rayman's world. Starting from Rabbids Go Home, this has been dropped in favor of them living in a world similar to ours, with the main Rayman games now more-or-less ignoring the Rabbids.
  • In the first game, Rayman was the only playable character, with the Rabbids being the main antagonists; the closest one could come to playing as the Rabbids was dressing Rayman up as one. Starting with the second game, the Rabbids became the main playable characters alongside Rayman as an option, before Rayman was excluded as a playable character entirely.
  • The original game serves as a bit of Early Installment Weirdness for the Wii itself, being presented in 4:3 instead of the 16:9 ratio that was standard for seventh-generation console games.
  • The Rabbids as characters have had quite a development from their early days til present time. Early on the Rabbids were emphasized as being incredible dancers which, while occasionally seen, has been downplayed immensely in later installments. They were also outright evil/malicious characters with anger problems, whilst less so later on, being more stupid and/or mean in their demeanor. Come the Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle spinoff, and they outright help Mario defeat the corrupted Rabbids and restore peace to the Mushroom Kingdom, essentially being the good guys.
• Earth Drift: Inverted. Rabbids Go Home has the Rabbids on a world far more similar to ours, something that would carry over to almost all later Raving Rabbids media, beyond spinoffs such as the Mario + Rabbids series, as well as completely dropping their ties to the Glade of Dreams setting that Rayman is from (to the point Rayman Origins very noticeably does not mention them).
• Fire-Breathing Diner:
  • One of the Rabbids does this in TV Party and uses his flame breath to destroy a city, Godzilla style.
  • The Spicy Chicken minigame in 2 has the Rabbids exploits this, with the contestants eating spicy peppers then using their fiery breath to cook chicken.
• Genius Ditz:
  • The Rabbids suck at almost everything except dancing.
  • The opening cutscene of Rabbids Rumble shows many of the Rabbid characters you can catch/collect somehow managing to escape the game's cartridge.
• Genre-Busting: The first game has various mini-games that differs in different genres, all from G-rated First-Person Shooter to racing.
• Gilded Cage: In the first game, as Rayman goes through the days, completing minigames and earning the Rabbids' respect, his dingy jail cell starts to look better and better, with new wallpaper, a nice carpet, an extravagant jukebox and all sorts of nice gifts. Yet despite it all, Rayman is still the Rabbids' plaything, and his main goal is still escaping.
• Gladiator Games: The first Rabbids game is a spoof on this.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: In the first game, Rayman plays various minigames with his supposed enemies, the Rabbids, including leisurely ones like volleyball.
• Hair-Raising Hare: the Raving Rabbids themselves (though they probably weren't intended to be scary.)
• Hub Level: Travel In Time has a museum as its hub, with the mini-games taking place in galleries named after the type of challenge found within.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Well, not "episode" naming per se, but all the minigames in the first game start with "Bunnies", all reading out like some "fact" about them (Bunnies Don't Give Gifts, Bunnies Helped Tame the Wild West, etc).
• It's a Wonderful Failure:
  • Failing certain minigames in the first Raving Rabbids shows a unique cutscene:
    • "Bunnies Don't Give Gifts": the box blows up, leaving Rayman with an Ash Face.
    • "Bunnies Are Slow to React": the Rabbid fails to react after being hit with a club, and the attacker goes on to attack another Rabbid.
    • "Bunnies Are Heartless With Pigs": getting too close to a buried Rabbid results in it coming out of the ground and burning Rayman's pig to a crisp with a flamethrower.
  • Losing all your neutrons in the final minigame of TV Party results in all the on-screen Rabbids except for one vanishing - the remaining Rabbid proceeds to mock you while a message saying "OOPS! YOU'LL HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THAT! CLEAR YOUR MIND..." appears on-screen.
• Killer Rabbit: The Rabbids themselves, almost literally.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A plethora of them in TV Party: B.R.U.S.H, Star Worse, Dawn of the Rabbids, need we go on?
• Lesser Star: Rayman in the sequels, getting less and less prominence until he was finally dropped from the billing after Rabbids Go Home.
• Mascot Mook: The Rabbids themselves.
• Masked Luchador: Loco Libre, the mascot of Rabbids Rumble, definitely counts as one.
• Meaningful Name: They are rabbits who are rabid, aka aggressive.
• Minigame Game: All of them, with the exception of Rabbids Go Home, which is more of a platformer.
• Missing Secret: The first game's Downer Ending put off many people, but there's a rumor that there's a hidden, happier ending by getting 100% Completion on every minigame. Sadly, there's a glitch in one of the dance mini-games which prevents said completion, but it's been proven that this 'secret ending' is nonexistent after all.
• Mythology Gag: The ending of Rabbids Travel in Time shows your Rabbids traveling to the far future, where they end up in a hangar filled with the same War of the Worlds-inspired Rabbid spaceships that were initially going to appear in Rayman 4. They also stumble upon Professor Barranco III from Raving Rabbids 2, who is attempting to use miniature versions of the Time Washing Machine to send an army of Rabbids across time and space.
• No Ending: The plot of Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 is about Rayman masquerading as a Rabbid in order to stop their invasion of the real world from the inside, but that's as far as the story goes. There is no conclusion to that plotline, not even an ending cutscene. The sequel TV Party begins with Rayman running away from a group of Rabbids, implying that he failed, but there is no more explanation than that. The next game in the series, Rabbids Go Home, exorcises Rayman and his world entirely, and with Rayman Origins and Legends making no mention of the lagomorphs either^note though early trailers for Rayman Legends show an unused NFC feature that would have included the Rabbids, the plot line seems to have been dropped entirely.
• No Fourth Wall:
  • The Rabbids have been known to break the fourth wall on numerous occasions. Most notably in the intro to Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, where Professor Barranco 3 takes out a copy of the first Raving Rabbids game to confirm his suspicions on Rayman's identity.
  • The title screen in Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party has a 2D animated Rabbid that appears to be messing with your television by playing with the volume, brightness and screen calibration.
  • There's also a Rabbid literally trapped inside your Wii remote in Rabbids Go Home, which the player can interact with by shaking the remote around and pressing different buttons to make the Rabbid react. In addition, in the main game, you can assist the two Rabbids by launching the Rabbid out of the Wii Remote at enemies and objects.
  • The graphic novels by French writers Thitaume and Pujol probably has the greatest amount of fourth wall breaks by the Rabbids. A notable example is the official teaser for the first volume of the comic.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Rayman in Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, by putting socks over his hair, wearing a pair of googly eyes and inhaling helium to look and sound like a Rabbid. This disguise fools all but one particularly observant Rabbid, but even they're fooled when Rayman screams like a Rabbid. Even more notable in gameplay, where Rayman doesn't even wear the socks or googly eyes but still fools the Rabbids.
• Party Game: Notably the third, which has the subtitle "TV Party"
• Pie in the Face: Some of the characters in Rabbids Rumble, including Loco Libre, have an attack where they throw a pie into their opponent's face.
• Police Lineup: One of the minigames in Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 centers around this - you're shown brief shots of a Rabbid committing a criminal deed, then a lineup of Rabbids that includes the culprit. You then have to pick the right one out.
• Product Placement: Capri Sun juice shows up in TV Party and Rabbids Go Home.
• Punny Name:
  • Half the Rabbid names in Rumble.
  • The name of the Rabbids themselves is a combination between the words "rabbit" and "rabid".
• Rage Against the Author: This video features the Rabbids viciously beating down Michel Ancel as he tries to explain the early development of the game as a Rayman platformer.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Rabbids act somewhat normal, until they scream and their eyes turn red.
• Rhythm Game: The singing and dancing minigames in the first three installments.
• Shmuck Bait: Travel in Time gives instructions ONLY in this form. It warns you not to do things, then presents you with how to do them via an illustration. Zig-zagged in that it varies whether they can be helpful or harmful.
• Silence Is Golden: In a departure from the Rayman series, the first Raving Rabbits game had no dialogue outside of simple words like "whoa!", "uh-oh!", and "help!".
• Spin-Off: The dance game in TV Party proved popular enough to create Just Dance.
• Stable Time Loop: Travel In Time's ending is implied to involve one. The Rabbid travels to the future, where an army of Rabbids are preparing to change history so the Rabbids dominate over humanity. The Rabbid accidentally triggers all of the time machines at once, causing them to travel back in time to the moment the introductory cutscene took place; this then results in the Rabbid's time machine landing in the 2012 museum, thereby setting up the events of the game.
• Sudden Downer Ending: The first game ends with Rayman successfully escaping the Rabbids' prison. While savouring his newfound freedom however, he comes across the area where he and the baby Globoxes were having their picnic and were he first got abducted, and suddenly realises he forgot to save most of them. Rayman then attempts to go back through one of the holes made by the Rabbids to try and save them, only to get stuck.
• Suddenly Speaking:
  • The Rabbids usually don't speak anything other than nonsensical gibberish, but can be heard saying "Aaaand Action!" during the mini-game "Bunnies are Oversensitive" , as well as in the Rayman Raving Rabbids Making Of videos.
  • Most of the rhythm-based mini-games from the first three party games will often have the Rabbids "singing" covers to famous songs in clear, understandable English. Though they could easily be lip syncing since a lot of the song's vocals differ from one another, and sound nothing like the Rabbids' actual voices.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In TV Party, your progression is represented by cracks on your TV screen.
  • Inverted in an advert mini-game in TV Party: You can slap a Rabbid in the face, and the bunny will have the buttons of the Wii remote imprinted on his cheek.
• The Unfought: Sergei the giant, black, unstoppable Rabbid from the first game. Sure, he participates in some minigames, but he's never actually fought in the Bunny Hunt minigames.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Rabbids. In the first game, they were evil as well, but in later installments they are more dumb than evil.
• Too Kinky to Torture: If you torture them in Rabbids Go Home, they will enjoy it immensely.
• Top-Heavy Guy: The wrestlers in TV Party have huge upper bodies with jiggling bellies, yet have rather skinny legs and feet.
• Trapped in TV Land: In TV Party.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • In the Score Mode of the first game, you can get up to 1000 points on each minigame based on how well you perform. These points accumulate over time and unlock extras such as videos and minigame tournaments. Some of the minigames have perfect score requirements that are higher than is physically possible to earn, even if you achieve a perfect score. For instance, in "Bunnies dansa la Bamba," you can only earn 995 of the 1000 possible points with a perfect score. As such, it is impossible to reach the full 183,000 points and get 100% without hacking.
  • Additionally, to unlock the final minigame tournament, you need 174,000 points. However, since said tournament accounts for the last 10,000 points needed for the maximum score, even if you did get a perfect score in every possible minigame, you would still only have 173,000 points, making the last tournament impossible to unlock.
• Voice Grunting: The Rabbids in pretty much every single game they appear.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Rayman can dress as a grandma in the first game, complete with pearls, beehive hairdo and tacky green dress.

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