Rare’s Craig Duncan has revealed how the studio ended up focusing on new IPs instead of bringing back Banjo Kazooie.
Banjo Kazooie is a long-beloved gaming duo, but in an interview with Eurogamer, Rare studio head Craig Duncan spoke about why the company wants to push forward with new IPs instead of just focusing on the past. “If that was our logic, we’d have been making Jetpac for the last 35 years,” he said, referring to the 1983 arcade shooter.
According to Duncan, the success of Sea of Thieves has given the devs at Rare a sense of confidence in their vision, and a desire to explore the future instead of trying to find a new iteration of their past successes. “Rare is a very special studio,” he said. “For us, it’s about finding the heart of what our special games are. I think Rare makes the kind of games the world doesn’t have. We always incubate ideas … we think have potential and are special and very unlike other games. And when we find something that gets us excited and passionate, then that forms into a real thing.”
Rare recently revealed a new project, Everwild, at XO19. A lustrous cinematic trailer showed an incredible world inhabited by fantastical creatures. The game will be a third-person adventure game, with the trailer giving some strong hints at cooperative play.
“The great thing about making games is putting a set of passionate people together making something they truly love and believe in,” Duncan told Eurogamer. “That’s the goal of making anything. That’s why Sea of Thieves is the game it is. That’s why Everwild will be the game it will be, because we have a team of people who are truly passionate about the thing they’re creating.”
A release date for Everwild has not been released yet, but Rare has said it will continue developing Sea of Thieves while Everwild is in production.
