Friendly fire! Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle receives PvP mode December 8th

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was a surprising hit for Nintendo Switch owners. Ubisoft’s crude, yet charming Rabbids interacting with Nintendo’s beloved Super Mario characters in a grid-based strategy game created a unique, but overall pleasant, experience.

Ubisoft announced that this marvelous mixture of mayhem would receive a multiplayer versus mode tomorrow, December 8th, 2017, free for all players. Rather than being stuck with either Super Mario characters or Rabbids, each player chooses a team of three.

However, the game doesn’t function the way it normally does in the main game. Instead of each character being given three actions, both players a limited to three actions total each turn, meaning you’ll have to plan ahead what you want to do on your first move.

Versus mode’s selectable combatants are evenly matched, from a skill-point standpoint. Instead of your leveled-up campaign characters, both players can choose from beefy, upgraded versions of all eight characters. You can stick with the solid all-around starter loadouts, or you can specialize using one of 16 unlockable variants (like Rabbid Luigi’s Vampiric option, or Mario’s BIG Stomp loadout), each with differently balanced stats and weapons. And yes, you can pick an all-Rabbid or all-Mushroom Kingdom team. Little things can make a big difference in these matches, and grabbing the optional power-ups (scattered across the map in question-mark blocks, of course) can swing the balance of a match by adding an extra action to a turn, buffing your attacks, and more.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is still expected to receive more paid DLC including an unannounced character, but releasing a versus mode for free is a nice surprise for fans. For more information on this update, visit the official blog.