Why Rayman Has The Happiest Music In Gaming: "We See The Map And Compose Straight Away"

We sat down with part of the team that made Rayman Legends Retold's soundtrack tick, and why this entry honors the franchise as a whole.

Published Nov 3, 2026, 12:00 PM EST

Chris is a Gaming Editor at ScreenRant. He has been a professional writer since 2009, and has written for top TV, comics, movie, and video game outlets like Engadget, Polygon, Destructoid, and more. He brings with him an expertise in every game genre, no matter how niche or mainstream.

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At this point, Rayman is over 30 years old as a franchise. That's kind of wild to think about, since you don't really think of Rayman in the same company as a ton of other "classic" franchises, but he was one of the first breakout mascot platformer stars in the era after Mario, alongside heavy-hitters like Crash Bandicoot.

Over the years, Rayman's output waned, but the series came back in a big way with 2011's Rayman Origins and 2013's Rayman Legends. Now, 13 years later, the latter is back and ready to rock as a remake.

I sat down with famed Ubisoft music producer Manu Bachet and composer Christophe Héral to check in on Rayman Legends Retold and get a sense of how much work went into the upcoming remake. As it turns out, it's a ton.

How The Sprinkle-Flavored Sausage Is Made

Manu Bachet really needs no introduction for anyone familiar with Ubisoft games. He's been a music supervisor for the publisher for 27 years, and the first game he worked on was Rayman 2. "I have a long story with the character," says Bachet. Christophe Héral has worked on the Rayman license for over a decade, and knows exactly how the series ticks. Based on my time with the duo, it's clear they both understand the series inside and out.

So what's new about the remake? Well, it's more than just new music and visuals, as some of the new stages needed songs. According to Bachet, it was a long list:

"Yeah, so the game has been expanded quite a lot. So basically, we needed new music for new gameplay segments. There is a new area in the game that wasn't there before, so we needed music for that too. And for this area, we wanted to bring a new color, maybe a little darker than the original game, and there were a few things that we could record. We could do better recordings with a big orchestra this time; we didn't have the time to do that with the original Legends."

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Bachet says Héral rose to the challenge, and was perfectly suited for the task: "Basically, Christophe knows the game like the back of his hand, so he doesn't really need to be briefed. Like, he sees the map, and he composes like straight away."

He expands, noting that some of the more intense musical levels needed extra attention:

"Yeah, so just to go a little further, yeah, the map goes through several universes, and it starts in Mexico. It goes through Switzerland or Germany, and then it finishes in Italy, and it's kind of a food travel throughout the music, and yeah. So basically, Christophe gives a track, like a basic track, and then the level designer starts to work on the music, and it's not the music or the level design. And then they talk together, and they refine and add some stuff, and at the end it makes something really funny."

Music Is A Process Like Any Other

I asked Héra about his process, and how much he manages to compose: "Sometimes, I can compose 20 seconds per day, sometimes, 20 days per one second. As for our timeline, we started in February, and recorded in May."

Once all the music was ready, according to Héra, it was a gargantuan challenge getting the band (or orchestra) together, so to speak:

"For this game, like, we recorded like 75 pieces of orchestra, so like a very huge orchestra, and it was really fun because some parts were pretty tough to play because they were very fast and very. But you should have seen the faces of the performers, like all the musicians in the studios that were kind of laughing while performing their parts, and that was really joyful. And so I think it's in the composition, in what Christophe composed. There is this joyful thing, and you know the sound texture, Christoph, like the kazoo and the harp and stuff like that. That, of course, brings some cartoonish vibe, also."

At the end of the day, the Rayman series is about joy, and the duo completely understands that, per Bachet:

"The joy is what we can put into it. That's a great thing with Rayman, we have no limit on what we can do, it's really a game where the composer can express himself. Rayman is a great playground compared to Assassin's Creed."

He continues: "You have to have the main theme [for Assassin's Creed]. You have to have all these elements that are pretty serious, and you have to include elements from the time of the era of the game, and the region where the game happens, but in Rayman we don't have that. It's like we can do whatever we want."

Having played a hands-on demo of Rayman Legends Retold, I'd say the music team is knocking it out of the park. We'll see on December 3 if the team can nail everything else.

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