Rare's N64 Team Working on Banjo-Kazooie

MS / RARE WTF you waiting for? You better be bringing a new Conker or Threeie to the X1 this gen and soon or else!!!! . :P

Anyhoo, interesting, hope it turn out great.

Thoughts?

The Story

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http://www.gamespot.com/articles/rare-s-n64-team-working-on-banjo-kazooie-spiritual/1100-6425232/

Rare's N64 Team Working on Banjo-Kazooie "Spiritual Successor"

New studio Playtonic formed by decorated, senior Rare developers.

by Rob Crossley on February 11, 2015

A group of decorated Rare developers, who were instrumental in creating some of the studio's most iconic games during the '90s, have formed a new indie studio with grand plans to create a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie.

The new studio, called Playtonic, was formed by Gavin Price and Chris Sutherland, two highly experienced Rare developers who were laid off in the summer last year.

Price started out in quality assurance at Rare, working on a broad range of N64 games, from Jet Force Gemini to Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Banjo Tooie, and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Later he went on to design some of Rare's more modern work, such as Kinect Sports.

Chris Sutherland, meanwhile, is a coder whose influence at the studio dates back to the late '80s when he was hired as an engineer. Sutherland, who also provided the voices of Banjo and Kazooie, was instrumental in coding Rare's most iconic games, such as Donkey Kong Country.

The two are joined by Steve Mayles, a renowned artist who created the Banjo Kazooie characters. Three other developers currently work at the studio, while Grant Kirkhope--a famed composer for many Rare games--has been hired for Playtonic's first game.

According a new article in Edge magazine, the current plan is to expand the team to around 15 people. It is expected that many of them will be former Rare developers.

The studio's debut game is called "Project Ukulele," and while details are thin for now, the game is expected to be a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie. A teaser image of the game has been posted online, and fans have already begun to speculate what characters it will depict.

How many of their N64 team is left after GE/PD team left to form Free Radical/Crytek UK, plus the departure of Chris Seavor? Not to mention, I don't think Grant Kirkhope is there anymore either.

EDIT: A curious question. I know this is a new studio formed up.

I dunno, Rare is bringing a new non Kinect game that's already playable so we'll see how that turns out, there are many great young & old devs out there so original Rare team not absolutely required. Eh, this new dev, Playtonic may be one to watch for fans of the old Rare games. Not sure which platforms they will cover tho.

I was just thinking the other day, what could ever compel me to consider picking up an Xbone. A non-bullshit Banjo game was one of the possibilities that came to mind.

Might actually be decent without Microshit or Neo-Rare attached to it.

Time for Banjo-Kazooie to come home.

Well, I hope it's a widened variety at least. If it's one thing I loved Free Radical in the sixth gen is that they were still able to make TimeSplitters on more consoles, which, although I own the third one on PS2, feels more at home on the GameCube in my personal opinion (so believe different if you want as that comes from my bias) BECAUSE of their history on the N64. Similar deal why I'm preferring to pick up Bond FPS (TWINE, Nightfire, GE 2010, and when I can, Agent Under Fire) on Nintendo consoles (while third person on PlayStation systems like Everything or Nothing and From Russia with Love, thanks to Tomorrow Never Dies even though that game looked pretty bad even for back then).

Is this under microsoft?

...Nintendo should get on this if not.

No, Playtonic seem to be indie atm but ya know, that's not a bad thought or even Sony.

I'm interested, but am skeptical due to it being indie. I mean, Grant is doing the soundtrack, the creator is there, so yeah there's potential, but just in terms of budget and manpower, it'll be limited. For this reason, I am much more hopeful of banjo threeie. But, who knows...

Hell, maybe Rare isn't even making Banjo threeie, and all the teasing has been about this game.

I'm fully expecting MS to announce a Conker game down the line since so many people were excited when he appeared on the screen at last years E3. This game may be worth keeping a eye on.

Just keep the collectibles down to a minimum. DK64 was insane with the collectibles.

Hopefully they team up with Nintendo. This could be a second coming of Rare and Nintendo.

Nah...never fully enjoyed Banjo Kazooie, too much "pick 500 items in each stage to move forward" for my taste. Call me when they make an spiritual succesor for Jet Force Gemini or Bad Fur's Day.

Ah, they formed an independent studio. Well, at least somebody's making Rare-like games.

Oh shadup, Rare has been making Rare like games on Xbox since the early 2000's, where you been. :P

Hope that the end product is good.

In 2008, when Rare made the last Rare-like game.

I'll start caring when I see actual footage.

So... they're Rare so every game they've made has been Rare like. How far you wanna go with this? Besides, they are said to be working on one of these " Rare like Games" right now and already playable so technically, at this very moment, they are indeed working on Rare like game.

Uhm no. Simply something that isn't a Kinect game.

And I'll wait to actually see something proper, rather than "yeah, we have rare doing some cool shit". They've been saying that for years now, so excuse my skepticism.

@freedomfreak:

No, they were Rare type games just not Rare type control would be a more accurate way of calling their Kinect offerings.. Eh, I feel positive about this new game but sure, it's a wait and see, what isn't?

If they dont announce Conker or Kameo at e3, and better yet for a fall release, I will rage.

Big whoop.

Games that actually got announced from first party studios with footage shown.

@SecretPolice: Kinect Sports is not anything like previous Rare games, especially in terms of quality.

Visuals looked Rare, Kinect ruined it.

Right and it won't be a Banjo, Jet Set Radio or Conker game that's for sure. Can't wait to see what Battletoads looks like for XB1.

That doesnt mean shit.

No it doesn't mean shit, good catch, it means just what I said it means.

@SecretPolice: If rare had previously made shitty sports compilation games then I would agree with you. Just because they had a decent presentation doesnt make them rare type games at all.

They are not working on Banjo Kazooie though :p

Spiritual successor to BK being made + the Bethesda E3 conference which could only mean a Dishonored II is going to be announced = a great day in gaming

Dishonored II, or Fallout 4, or a new Elder's scrolls. I actually prefer one of the last two. I finished Dishonored, but wasn't blown away by it

Rare is the most overrated game company ever. I have played all of their games and still don't see what all the fuss is about.

One of the best things about Conker was they cut down the collectibles and made them something you naturally received by playing the game from beginning to end.

Nice! Shame it takes a non-Rare studio to do Rare games! :P

I think this could be said with every game company from back then. I think their games created a fan base and it's the nostalgia is what's pushing the need for a new game for an old title. But some need to realize that every dev including Rare are just people who gets old and lose ideas and creativity along the way, so much so they hire new people all the time so at the end of the day it's not the same dev team or Rare anymore. Same thing happened to David Gaffe and his God of War and Twisted Metal series. Same thing with Bungie. It happens with everyone. I think sometimes devs need to get out the box or rebuild and created something fresh like Insomniac. That's probably why devs leave and create a whole new team to try to make something they are good at new and good again like Respawn Titanfall. So I guess what all this means is that devs are only as good as their most recent game, and it's nostalgia that keeps expectations high, so people just need to release some of that nostalgia and let it be.

Rare without MicroD**k ?

interesting!

My feelings are getting played yet again.

I don't like that.

It's bound to be multiple announcements. Because it needs multiple to warrant them having a conference.

I was actually expecting another Dishonored to be announced last year, but this E3 is perfect ! Arkane has been working on a sequel ever since the first one released. Bethesda confirmed it sold enough to warrant more games and Arkane Austin did the DLC, not the Lyon studio that did the main game.

Then there is going to be either a new TES or Fallout, but all signs point towards Fallout. And they also want to promote their TES Online more first, before announcing a new SP TES.

It's a guess. But I'm really sure they'll announce Fallout 4 and Dishonored II.

It's a spiritual successor. Which is as good as it gets :)

Awesome

If it gets released on the Wii U it better be great or I fear it'll be lost in the shuffle. There's a ton of quality platformers on that system already.

"the current plan is to expand the team to around 15 people"

lol so they don't even have a full team together yet, dare we hope for an actual release by the year 2017?

When will MS stop with the "hey we're announcing a game so please enjoy this non-gameplay CGI/picture that will be nothing like the actual game we've prepared!" and actually show real games? I guess MS has to say something to keep loyal fans holding on to the dream.

Right. Give me a new Perfect Dark on WiiU with Pointer Controls optional and I'll be good to go

RARE is dead as we knew them.

Thankfully this new team will hopefully fill that void.

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The new studio, called Playtonic, was formed by Gavin Price and Chris Sutherland, two highly experienced Rare developers who were laid off in the summer last year.

Might be cool to see what they do on Wii U. Not holding my breath though. With such a small team and little funding, this will probably end up a digital only 2.5d indie title. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we are kind of flooded with those kind of titles and gaming is in desperate need of a Banjo type game.

You're the biggest lemming on this board. Rare is dead get over it.

oh just what we need, another bs platformers. hopefully this shit is wii ew exclusive