The N64 era is back: Rare veterans on Wii U, triple-A development and its successor

May 1st, 2015, 21:28 Posted By: wraggster

Gavin Price is feeling nervous.

The creative director and studio head at Playtonic Games is about to debut his first project on Kickstarter. He and five other senior veterans from acclaimed UK developer Rare have banded together to launch a new studio which aims to take gamers back to 1996, when 3D platformers were all the rage and Rare was the jewel in the UK's games development crown.

“It’s so unpredictable,” says Price, referring to the crowd-funding platform that has made names of Oculus Rift, Broken Age and Star Citizen, but all-but-killed The Black Glove and Shadows of the Eternals.
“We have been discussing with people that have done Kickstarter before, and despite everyone saying ‘this

works for us, and this didn’t’, there doesn’t seem to be any magic formulae that guarantees you anything or puts your mind at rest. So yes, massively nervous.


“We have done as much as we can do to give us the best boost possible, but it’s like the old phrase at Nintendo: ‘work hard, but in the end it's in heaven's hands.’”


The name of their game is Yooka-Laylee. It is, to all intents and purposes, the third game in the Banjo Kazooie series – which pretty much the entire Playtonic team worked on. Even the logo looks the same. Rather than a bear and bird, players this time will control a chameleon and bat duo, who must jump around 3D worlds and collect items.

"There doesn’t seem to be any magic formulae
that guarantees you anything on
Kickstarter, or puts your mind at rest."

- Gavin Price, Playtonic

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