After teaming up with Nintendo on two Mario + Rabbids outings, Ubisoft Milan wanted to go further with the Japanese giant. According to an investigation carried out over more than 18 months by Tom Henderson for Insider Gaming, the Italian studio worked on a brand-new Zelda project, known internally by the codename "Goliath", before Nintendo ultimately pulled the plug at the end of 2023. And these details shed rather more light on why several key figures at Ubisoft Milan walked out of the company a few months later. Davide Soliani, Cristina Nava and Gian Marco Zanna left Ubisoft in July 2024 to set up their own studio, Day 4 Night, after several years working side by side — including on this Ganondorf Zelda.
Exit Link, enter Ganondorf (oh hell yes!)
It all starts at the end of 2022, a few weeks after Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope launched. Despite sales that fell short of initial expectations, the game had been well received by critics, and both Nintendo and Ubisoft remained happy with its reception and its long-term potential. Talks about a fresh collaboration between the two companies therefore resumed quickly. But Ubisoft Milan wasn't necessarily keen on a third Mario + Rabbids game, so, under Davide Soliani's direction, a small team began working on a far more ambitious idea over the winter of 2022-2023. A few months later, the studio had put together a pitch considered internally to be solid enough to present to Nintendo.
The project, codenamed "Goliath" internally, was to be set in the world of The Legend of Zelda. The idea was neither a sequel nor a prequel to an existing game, but a genuine spin-off with an original story and a lead character who had never been used before. Ubisoft Milan wanted to explore a new side of the Zelda lore, with a protagonist never before seen in the series. And it was during the design phase that this idea evolved, setting that new character aside to focus on a far more familiar one: Ganondorf, the main antagonist of every Zelda game. The project would therefore have let you play as Link and Zelda's sworn enemy directly — even if, technically, Ganondorf has already been playable in the Hyrule Warriors series (which doesn't count towards the lore).
For Nintendo, it's a NO!
Ubisoft Milan then had several months to turn the idea into a prototype and convince Nintendo to press on with the adventure. According to the information gathered by Tom Henderson, the studio had to show a sufficiently polished version around the end of 2023 in order to clear a new approval stage. The prototype was finally shown to Nintendo in November 2023, but by the end of that same month the Japanese company had apparently decided to reject it. The precise reasons behind that decision remain unknown to this day, and neither Nintendo nor Ubisoft has officially detailed the exchanges that led to Goliath's cancellation.
That decision didn't immediately end the collaboration between the two companies, however. After the project was dropped, another avenue was reportedly floated for Ubisoft Milan, still involving work on a Nintendo-owned licence. Internal discussions are said to have thrown around the names Star Fox and a new project tied to the Mario universe. But talks between Nintendo and Ubisoft gradually lost momentum between late 2023 and early 2024, until the discussions were called off for good.
Ubisoft Milan left demoralised
Goliath's cancellation also had significant consequences for the team working on it. The developers were spread across various projects in Ubisoft's portfolio, while some found themselves placed "on availability", meaning with no project directly assigned to them. More experienced members of the team were reportedly moved onto Beyond Good & Evil 2, the perennial no-show whose development began nearly 20 years ago and which has already been through several changes of direction and no end of trouble.
For Davide Soliani, Cristina Nava and Gian Marco Zanna, the Ubisoft adventure came to an end a few months later. In July 2024, the three developers left the company and founded Day 4 Night with Christian Cantamessa, an industry veteran who has worked on GTA San Andreas, Red Dead Redemption and Forza Horizon. Not a bad CV. The new studio then revealed its first project, Bradley the Badger, development of which had already begun by the time Day 4 Night was officially announced in October 2024. The game was finally shown to the public at the Game Awards on 11 December 2025. Several former Ubisoft Milan developers have since joined Day 4 Night, against a backdrop of tricky times at Ubisoft to say the least.
For its part, Ubisoft did not respond to Insider Gaming's requests in time for publication. The company had, however, acknowledged internally that a journalist was already digging for information on this mysterious Goliath project.
