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Gregg Mayles, Banjo-Kazooie Game Designer, is leaving Rare

Which important figures are even left then? It's depressing to see studios with talents leaving or split across different studios especially when their new place also goes away or doesn't last as long like Free Radical for example.

Now Microsoft owns two worthless empty shell companies with Blizzard and Rare.
 
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Kacho said:
What has the talent at Rare produced in the past 20 years?
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To be bluntly fair, its well known that Microsoft's exceptionally shitty management of Rare was what butchered them, not Rare themselves. There's that urban legend that some Microsoft executives actually thought buying Rare would give them the rights to Donkey Kong.

They cancelled a proper Banjo sequel (before Nuts and Bolts), Conker sequel, forced them to work on Kinect Sports (which caused a pretty big exodus of Rare talent), etc.
They still managed to make some solid games though, Viva Piñata, Kameo, Live and Reloaded were all solid titles. But they are all old as hell now.
 
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What? There are original designers of Banjo Kazooie still at Rare all these years later? In some ways this is more depressing to know....
 
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Nvzman said:
They still managed to make some solid games though, Viva Piñata, Kameo, Live and Reloaded were all solid titles. But they are all old as hell now.
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Yeah, their late Xbox games and early 360 games were great. Jetpac Refueled remains underrated as FUCK.

Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero are what got me to buy an Xbox 360 (when Dead Rising dropped tbf).

Any talent leaving now was wasting away for the past 20 years to collect a pay check.
 
GoldenEye98 said:
What? There are original designers of Banjo Kazooie still at Rare all these years later? In some ways this is more depressing to know....
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That was my thought as well. I've never heard of this guy, but his game creds are very impressive. All these years with this kind of talent and only Sea of Thieves to show for it? I don't get it
 
l
Kacho said:
Yeah, their late Xbox games and early 360 games were great. Jetpac Refueled remains underrated as FUCK.

Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero are what got me to buy an Xbox 360 (when Dead Rising dropped tbf).

Any talent leaving now was wasting away for the past 20 years to collect a pay check.
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Yeah, I don't feel anything about this news because Gregg has had all the time in the world to make a new Banjo game or any game he wanted, yet the only thing of note has been Sea of Thevies. Everwild was not at all what any fan of Rare wanted.
 
Nvzman said:
They still managed to make some solid games though, Viva Piñata, Kameo, Live and Reloaded were all solid titles.
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Solid titles (and that's being generous) but when you consider what they made whilst with Nintendo and it pails completely into nothingness. Donkey Kong Country series. Banjo Kazooie/Tooie. Diddy Kong Racing. Goldeneye. Perfect Dark. Battletoads. The list goes on and these games are legendary. Just another in the long line of complete fuck ups by Microsoft.
 
I get that Microsoft is Microsoft, and benefits wise it probably doesn't get much better than that.

However, I'm guessing he and others that are jumping ship came to the realization they're being under utilized.

Feel bad for them, as various different teams have been absorbed into the Call of Duty churn machine or similar.
 
diffusionx said:
Rare is not going to be making any new games and will be the Sea of Thirves studio.
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It Hurts Jersey Shore GIF by Jersey Shore Family Vacation
 
I have heard for at least a decade that noone from the original rare is left... only to see news every couple of years that a big of deb is leaving.
Rare is a perpetual developer machine it seems
 
BlueManifest said:
Talent there probably wanted to make a lot things but Microsoft wouldn't let them
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that seems to be pretty rare (no pun intended).
it never looked like Microsoft intervened to any noticeable degree with what Rare wanted to do in the past.
they made extremely whacky and risky titles over the years. making Banjo 3 would have been an easy decision for example, but they made a completely weird vehicle physics puzzle game instead.
or what about making a new Battletoads? NOPE! instead they made a pet/farming simulator with living Piñatas... and later ported it to the DS...
they could have made an Xbox kart racer... but nope! instead they made 3 DKC remakes for Nintendo and pitched a brand new 4th DKC for the DS
 
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What I've would have done for Rare to be bought by Nintendo back in the day. Ugh. Banjo would probably be an all star series like Mario and Zelda to this day.
 
SEGAvangelist said:
Battletoads, DKC, Banjo, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Pinata, and Sea of Thieves.

Good resume.
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Well, Grabbed by the Ghoulies was ass, but the others are good and make up for that trash.

kevboard said:
that seems to be pretty rare (no pun intended).
it never looked like Microsoft intervened to any noticeable degree with what Rare wanted to do in the past.
they made extremely whacky and risky titles over the years. making Banjo 3 would have been an easy decision for example, but they made a completely weird vehicle physics puzzle game instead.
or what about making a new Battletoads? NOPE! instead they made a pet/farming simulator with living Piñatas... and later ported it to the DS...
they could have made an Xbox kart racer... but nope! instead they made 3 DKC remakes for Nintendo and pitched a brand new 4th DKC for the DS
Click to expand...

Phil Spencer ran Rare for a bit in the '00s before moving up in the structure.

Just let that sink in for a minute.

And actually, Rare wanted to make a sequel to Perfect Dark Zero back in the 7th gen, but MS rejected the pitch. So MS have definitely prevented their devs from making certain games they wanted to otherwise make.

Nvzman said:
To be bluntly fair, its well known that Microsoft's exceptionally shitty management of Rare was what butchered them, not Rare themselves. There's that urban legend that some Microsoft executives actually thought buying Rare would give them the rights to Donkey Kong.

They cancelled a proper Banjo sequel (before Nuts and Bolts), Conker sequel, forced them to work on Kinect Sports (which caused a pretty big exodus of Rare talent), etc.
They still managed to make some solid games though, Viva Piñata, Kameo, Live and Reloaded were all solid titles. But they are all old as hell now.
Click to expand...

They also cancelled a Perfect Dark sequel (post-Zero). Yes, PDZ was...not great. Some neat ideas, some good missions, impressive visuals for a launch 360 game, but it could've been a lot better. Halo 3 and Gears came out and just completely overshadowed the IP, so I can understand on some level why MS felt they didn't need PD anymore.

Still tho, it's just ironic to realize that and then when they actually DID need a new Perfect Dark two decades later...they cancel that one, too. IMO that was another Scalebound moment for the brand, and it's only gotten worst from there.
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
And actually, Rare wanted to make a sequel to Perfect Dark Zero back in the 7th gen, but MS rejected the pitch. So MS have definitely prevented their devs from making certain games they wanted to otherwise make.
Click to expand...

that is weird. I could see this story not actually being that simple. this could have been a case of development limbo, where noone had a good concept for a sequel. because cancelling Perfect Dark, while greenlighting Nuts & Bolts and Viva Pinata seems... highly counterintuitive.
 
Topher said:
That was my thought as well. I've never heard of this guy, but his game creds are very impressive. All these years with this kind of talent and only Sea of Thieves to show for it? I don't get it
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Team Andromeda said:
Big loss this is to RARE
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Creatively, yeah, huge loss. But Financially, maybe not. It's not like Rare was going to be working on anything else anytime soon. When a team hits on a GaaS game, they're a GaaS team from that point on.
 
Just a year ago from Phil Spencerv.
xboxera.com

Remember Everwild? Phil Spencer visits Rare and goes hands-on

Following the resounding success of Sea of Thieves, Rare announced their next game Everwild all the way back at XO 2019. We've had one updated trailer
xboxera.com xboxera.com

Jez Corden just 4 months ago.
"Since then, the game lost its lead developer, but my most recent inquiries suggested that the game is now on track, and has strong confidence from Microsoft's producers."
www.windowscentral.com

Xbox Showcase 2025 preview: What I expect to see from Microsoft's big annual games blowout

It's that time again. The Xbox Showcase is upon us, set for sail on June 8th. What can we expect to see? I have some ideas — without hard spoilers.
www.windowscentral.com www.windowscentral.com
 
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BlueManifest said:
Talent there probably wanted to make a lot things but Microsoft wouldn't let them
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Microsoft gave them way to much freedom after SoT (Rares most successful title ever by a large margin no matter what people here think of it)

And they just coasted doing absolutely fuck all it seems like. I really do wonder what hundreds of developers spent years doing and who was over sighting it.
 
Rare died the moment MS bought it and the quality of its games dropped dramatically. It's just a matter of time before they close the studio, given the cancellation of Everwild, the layoffs, and the people leaving.
 
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