VGC recently chatted with former Rare developers about Banjo-Kazooie and its 25th anniversary. They talked about whether they feel there will ever be a new game in the series:

“I can’t really speak for Gregg [Mayles, Rare’s creative director] but he’s really the custodian of the franchise. He doesn’t really like to look back and tread over old ground, so I don’t think he’s ever been bothered about doing anything else with the franchise. He’d rather move on to new experiences – as far as he’s concerned, he’s been there, done that”.

Kirkhope said he didn’t think a Banjo 3 would ever happen. “I feel like you’d have to get a team with the humour that we had back then and that’s hard to replicate,” he said. “I think Rare would be open to somebody if they found the right team, but I don’t feel like that team exists. Also, I’m not convinced the audience is there either.”

The reason there hasn’t been a new Banjo-Kazooie game in so long isn’t because of Rare, it’s because of Microsoft. I can guarantee if Rare was owned by Nintendo, we would’ve gotten a new Banjo game by now, if not more than one.

Rare doesn’t make a lot of games anymore, and Microsoft has never figured out a way to leverage Rare’s classic IPs. Let Playtonic Games make a new Banjo-Kazooie, with Microsoft and Nintendo as co-publishers/producers. This seems like the obvious way forward. If Microsoft and Nintendo were able to work out a deal with the James Bond license to get GoldenEye 007 re-released on Xbox and Switch, surely they can do the same to get a new Banjo-Kazooie game made for both platforms.

[VGC]