Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle had a lot of aspects worth celebrating, including its soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope of Donkey Kong, Banjo-Kazooie, and Perfect Dark fame. We already knew he was returning for Sparks of Hope, but today we learned he’s being joined by two other incredibly talented game composers: Gareth Coker and Yoko Shimomura.
If you don’t recognize those names, you’ve definitely heard their work. Coker has won numerous awards for his work on Ori and the Blind Forest and later for its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps. He also composed the music for Ark: Survival Evolved and Immortals Fenyx Rising, and a number of tracks in multiple Minecraft expansion packs, Dota 2, and Halo Infinite.
As for Shimomura, she’s best known for her work on all the Kingdom Hearts games, but has racked up numerous credits going back to the 1980s. She composed music for Street Fighter 2, Breath of Fire, Live a Live, Super Mario RPG, Legend of Mana, multiple Mario & Luigi games, Xenoblade Chronicles, Radiant Historia, and Final Fantasy 15, among many other games. With her joining Coker and Kirkhope, it’s truly a music power trio.
We learned much more about Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope during both yesterday’s Nintendo Direct and today’s presentation including its release date of October 20, 2022, and a ton more details about its combat and characters that you can read about in our roundup of all the new news.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
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