Nintendo killed Ubisoft's Zelda spin-off and ended their partnership entirely
Nintendo rejected a Zelda spin-off built by Ubisoft Milan and then cut ties with the French publisher entirely, ending one of gaming's more unexpected creative partnerships. The project, codenamed Goliath, was developed throughout 2023 by the team behind Mario + Rabbids, and Nintendo's blunt dismissal of the prototype triggered a chain of events that cost Ubisoft one of its most senior creative directors.
The pitch
Ubisoft Milan approached Nintendo in early 2023 with a Zelda spin-off featuring an original protagonist. Nintendo asked the team to replace that character with series villain Ganondorf — and the studio complied, retooling the project around the iconic antagonist. The team, led by Mario + Rabbids director Davide Soliani, treated Goliath as a serious prospect and worked on it for the better part of a year. When they presented the prototype to Nintendo in late November 2023, Insider Gaming reports it was sharply criticized and cancelled without any detailed explanation.
Zelda is one of Nintendo's most guarded franchises. Outside of CD-i disasters from the early 1990s, Nintendo has never licensed the IP to a third-party studio for a mainline or spin-off entry — making Ubisoft's pitch ambitious to the point of improbable in hindsight.
The fallout
After the rejection, Soliani reportedly pitched Nintendo on alternative projects including Star Fox and Mario games. Nintendo declined all of them. The partnership, which had produced two Mario + Rabbids titles, ended completely. For context, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope sold around 3 million copies after its 2022 launch — respectable, but well below the 10 million that Kingdom Battle had reached, a gap that likely weakened Ubisoft Milan's negotiating position regardless of creative ambitions.
Soliani left Ubisoft in July 2024 after 25 years with the company. He went on to co-found independent studio Day 4 Night alongside Cristina Nava and Christian Cantamessa — whose credits include GTA and Red Dead Redemption — and per Game World Observer, the studio revealed its debut title, Bradley the Badger, at The Game Awards in December 2025. The remaining Ubisoft Milan team was reportedly redirected to the long-delayed Beyond Good & Evil 2.
What it shows
Nintendo's refusal to explain the rejection, combined with its refusal of every subsequent pitch, points to a clean break rather than a creative disagreement. For fans, it means a Zelda experience with an entirely different studio's sensibility — however strange that might have sounded — is off the table for the foreseeable future. For Ubisoft, losing both the Nintendo relationship and the director who built it is a concrete sign of how much the studio's position has shifted since the peak of the Mario + Rabbids era.
