Ubisoft Milan pitched an ambitious Legend of Zelda spin-off starring Ganondorf to Nintendo under the codename Goliath in early 2023.
Behind the colorful tactical battles of Mario and Rabbids, a small team in Italy spent the winter of 2022 dreaming up something entirely different. Following the release of Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, developers at Ubisoft Milan began discussing what their next major collaboration with Nintendo could be. Their ambitions quickly outgrew a standard sequel, pointing toward a project that veterans believed could elevate the Milan office into a flagship studio.
The Genesis of Project Goliath and Nintendo’s Counterproposal
The pitch started as an original spin-off set within The Legend of Zelda universe, centered on a brand-new protagonist that no player had ever seen before. According to reporting detailed by Insider Gaming, Nintendo reviewed the initial concept and expressed interest, but returned with a major revision of their own: the lead role needed to go to Ganondorf. With that creative pivot accepted, Davide Soliani led a compact development team through a grueling winter sprint to build a playable prototype before an end-of-year deadline.
Davide didn’t want to aim for the sun; he wanted to aim for the entire universe; he wanted to create a new big bang in the video game universe.
Gian Marco Zanna, Ubisoft veteran, via Insider Gaming
That immense scope gave the project its internal codename, Goliath. The team worked tirelessly to meet the greenlight requirements, delivering the completed prototype to Nintendo in late November 2023. Despite the studio’s high confidence, Nintendo rejected the prototype, leaving the reasons behind the cancellation entirely unclear.
From Canceled Pitch to Breakdown in Communications
The rejection did not instantly kill the working relationship between the two companies. In the weeks following the cancellation, proposals emerged for Ubisoft Milan to shift gears and tackle a different Nintendo intellectual property entirely. Internal studio rumors pointed toward possible projects involving Star Fox or another game set in the Mario universe as potential landing spots for the team.
Yet those discussions failed to gain traction. Between late 2023 and early 2024, communication lines between Nintendo and Ubisoft began to break down completely. Lacking a greenlit collaborative project, the Milan development team was fragmented. Management dispersed engineers and artists across various other Ubisoft portfolio initiatives, while others were placed on availability
—internal limbo for developers without an active assignment.
Leadership Departures and the Formation of Day 4 Night
The dissolution of the Goliath team triggered a wave of high-profile departures from Ubisoft Milan. In July 2024, Davide Soliani, Cristina Nava, and Gian Marco Zanna all left the company. Rather than indicating a bitter internal dispute with Ubisoft management, colleagues noted that the departures stemmed directly from the heartbreak of seeing their massive, unannounced project fail to reach store shelves.
The departing veterans joined forces with Christian Cantamessa—a veteran developer whose credits span Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Red Dead Redemption, and Forza Horizon—to establish a brand-new studio called Day 4 Night. The fresh venture was officially announced in October 2024 with development already underway on an original platformer titled Bradley the Badger.
Where the Remaining Developers Landed
While the studio's founders carved out an independent path, the remaining developers left behind at Ubisoft faced internal turmoil. Some developers in higher-up positions were reassigned to Beyond Good & Evil 2, an infamous project caught in nearly two decades of developmental reboots and delays. Additional staff members chose to leave Ubisoft later, driven away by return-to-office mandates and broader concerns over job security.
The Next Milestone for the Ex-Ubisoft Team
Day 4 Night is scheduled to showcase Bradley the Badger on December 11, 2025 at The Game Awards, marking the first major public look at what Soliani and his core team built after stepping away from major publisher partnerships.