Former Rare devs form new studio for Banjo-Kazooie successor

By Will Fulton February 11, 2015

banjo kazooie might never return creators working something like project ukulele — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Playtonic Games, a new studio formed by former Rare devs, has teased a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, the Rare-developed series of platformers that originally launched on Nintendo 64 in 1998. The possibility of a successor was hinted at as far back as 2012 by former Rare devs on the MingyJongo Twitter account, but this is the first official announcement.

The studio’s debut game has the working title Project Ukulele. It currently has no release date, publisher, or platform commitment. More details will be revealed in the February 12 issue of Edge Magazine. In a NeoGAF post that hypes the upcoming interview, it is confirmed that Playtonic is interested in courting Nintendo: “There’s a history of working with Nintendo so we’d naturally love to see our game on a Nintendo platform. If people tell us to make Wii U our target console platform then we’ve got the flexibility to do that.”

The team at Playtonic is composed of veteran, lead developers from Rare, with a combined 108 years of experience at the famous British studio.

“We’ve got the bloke who programmed Donkey Kong Country, the character designer behind Banjo and Kazooie, and the artist who made your console fit to burst with lavish environments across a decade’s worth of adventure games,” explains an introduction on the studio’s website.

Follow Playtonic’s Twitter for more updates about the upcoming game, and look for details following the release of Edge’s interview.

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Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

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