Former Rare devs talk about 'pent-up passion' for Banjo Kazooie successor

Yesterday news broke that a team of former Rare developers are to team up to make a "spiritual successor" to beloved platformer Banjo Kazooie.

The reveal came in tandem with an interview in the latest issue of Edge magazine, which is available to purchase now.

In the interview the full team of devs is revealed, with several of them commenting on the situation and their 'pent-up passion' for the project that lays ahead of them.

Leading the way at Playtonic Games is Gavin Price - who worked at Rare between 1999 and 2014. He lost his job as part of a "restructure" at the now-Microsoft owned company, as well as other Rare elders.

"Imagine there's an alternative timeline where Rare become independent instead of being bought by Microsoft," said Price. "What would that company be like? What would it have gone on to become? That's our ambition.

"Our aim is to make some really cracking games in the style that we used to make them, not focusing just on certain types of games, but how we make them - that was unique to Rare and we know how we did it."

Joining him are Chris Sutherland, Steve Mayles, Steven Hurst, Mark Stevenson and Jens Restemeier. They will also work alongside composer Grant Kirkhope, who worked on the Banjo Kazooie series.

Price also claims that he already has more "well known" former Rare employees lined up to join the studio's team, which they hope to expand to between ten and fifteen people.

"Without giving the game away, I think it's pretty obvious what kind of game we're making from the history of the team... We want to create a game where you control a fun character, learn new skills, add some new twists to the genre, and also listen to Grant's tunes," said Price.

"For me, the appeal is that'll be able to create characters for a game myself again, creating a whole chain of animation," said Mayles, who designed Banjo, Kazooie and other characters from the series.

The full interview, including quotes from other members of the team and discussion of how long the project has been talked about, can be found in the latest issue of Edge Magazine (#277), which is available now.