Fans of the legendary Nintendo 64 game Banjo Kazooie will be unhappy with the news – the Banjo Kazooie series is unlikely to return.
The 3D platformer released in 1997, and was one of the feature titles on the N64 games system. It saw players control bear and bird duo Banjo and Kazooie, one of the most popular video game duos of all time.
They travelled through the evil witch Grunty’s lair, collecting golden jigsaw pieces in order to save Banjo’s sister, Tootie.
This was followed up by an incredible sequel, Banjo Tooie, in 2000. It then had a controversial third game released on the XBOX 360 in 2008, and the series has been quiet ever since.
Despite the pair being included as DLC in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, the former Rare (the company that makes the games) developers don’t think Banjo Kazooie will be returning to the world of video games.
A series of forer developers and Rare workers gave their opinions on the series, in a video reacting to the 25th Anniversary of Banjo Kazooie.
Former character designer Steven Mayles was first to give his view, saying:
“I don’t think that would work now on triple-A projects, if Banjo-Kazooie was remade, because things take so much longer to make. But in those days that was a big part of it for sure.”
“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”.
Meanwhile, legendary video game composer Grant Kirkhope claimed the situation behind the scenes would be “hard to replicate”, and that no team exists that could bring the same magic to the series.
“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.”
Meanwhile, lead programmer Chris Sutherland hopes that a sequel could be created, and mused that it should come out while he “can still remember the first one”.
“I would hope that somebody is going to bring out something… some kind of sequel or ‘next in line’ game. At least before a point where I can still remember that the first one existed! But hopefully sooner.” Lead programmer Chris Sutherland
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