yeah...it's called nostalgia.
Viva Piñata is at minimum top 3 Rare.
Couldn't care less about Sea of Thieves myself.
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After the success of the new Yooka Laylee, I really hope Playtonic can fill the space left by Rare.
- Thread starter Lant_War
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yeah...it's called nostalgia.
Viva Piñata is at minimum top 3 Rare.
Couldn't care less about Sea of Thieves myself.
It's probably for the best to take it at face value, when a company says they're making what they want, but if some are sceptical let's remember that Eurogamer heard from three seperate sources, that the order to make service games came down to Lionhead and Microsoft's other first party studios:
Lionhead: The inside story
In October 2008, Microsoft released Lionhead's Fable 2 to critical and commercial acclaim. At a launch party an emotion…
www.eurogamer.net
It's entirely possible that Rare really enjoys making Kinect and service games and they would have done those games anyways, but when stories like that come out from behind the scenes, it's hard to blame some for doubting the sincerity of the direction they went in. The Lionhead people basically say that they wanted to do a single player game (Fable 4), but it was either service games or be closed down.
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So the premise of this thread is Rare is dead and YL is already a success? Last me guess, you have no receipts for either claim.
If VP was on the 64 folk would be gushing about it the same way they do Rare's hits from that era.
Wasn't the criticism of the first game mostly on the level design being a mess? I've never played YL because I always heard such bad things about the level design.
It's probably for the best to take it at face value, when a company says they're making what they want, but if some are sceptical let's remember that Eurogamer heard from three seperate sources, that the order to make service games came down to Lionhead and Microsoft's other first party studios:
Lionhead: The inside story
In October 2008, Microsoft released Lionhead's Fable 2 to critical and commercial acclaim. At a launch party an emotion…
It's entirely possible that Rare really enjoys making Kinect and service games and they would have done those games anyways, but when stories like that come out from behind the scenes, it's hard to blame some for doubting the sincerity of the direction they went in. The Lionhead people basically say that they wanted to do a single player game (Fable 4), but it was either service games or be closed down.
You're pulling stuff from almost ten years ago to say they're not doing what they want today with a completely new leadership both for xbox and microsoft as a whole
Dont you have a FFXIV article to say microsoft doesnt allow crossplay as well?
Microsoft or/and Rare doesn't seems to be interested in platforms anymore and Playtonic made 2 games since Retro's Tropical Freeze so I hope Playtonic take that google eyed platformers place (and kart games as well eventually)
No, I'm not talking about today, where things are obviously different, but the development of their games long before today, back when those games started development. The article is from 2016 if I remember correctly and Sea of Thieves started development a couple of years before that.
And I'm not saying anything, except that I can understand if some are sceptical after seeing stuff like that come out from behind the scenes, which the user I replied to seemed to think was entirely unreasonable (my interpretation of his post). Like I said it's usually best to take things at face value and believe a developer, if they say they're making what they want.
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Some terrible takes in this thread. Rare is still doing what Rare has been doing for over three decades, albeit with a slower output. Playtonic is doing what one arm of Rare was doing 20-25 years ago. As long as they keep retreading old ground and remain planted in the mascot platformer category, I won't consider them a rebirth of "old Rare".
With that said, I love what Playtonic is doing right now, and I can't wait to see what they do next. Hopefully they give the 3D platformer genre another try. With the team they have built now, I think the sequel will improve a lot over the first one.
(On a side note I'm also excited to see what Rare is working on next. It seems like Sea of Thieves has really reinvigorated the studio)
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To avoid any confusion, I don't consider the Rare of today to be the same as the Rare of old either. The slower output of games means that there is not a lot of options for Rare fans who aren't interested in Sea of Thieves. Compare that to the N64 era where Rare was pumping out wildly different experiences such as Banjo, Goldeneye, KI, DKR and Blast Corps.
Rare's philosophy remains the same as it was back then though. It's just a shame they only release games every three or four years nowadays. I know there has been talks of a second team at Rare, but that's still only speculation until they actually announce something.
To me, the combined forces of Rare, Playtonic and Gory Detail represent the spirit of "old Rare".
With that said, I love what Playtonic is doing right now, and I can't wait to see what they do next. Hopefully they give the 3D platformer genre another try. With the team they have built now, I think the sequel will improve a lot over the first one.
(On a side note I'm also excited to see what Rare is working on next. It seems like Sea of Thieves has really reinvigorated the studio)
Edit:
To avoid any confusion, I don't consider the Rare of today to be the same as the Rare of old either. The slower output of games means that there is not a lot of options for Rare fans who aren't interested in Sea of Thieves. Compare that to the N64 era where Rare was pumping out wildly different experiences such as Banjo, Goldeneye, KI, DKR and Blast Corps.
Rare's philosophy remains the same as it was back then though. It's just a shame they only release games every three or four years nowadays. I know there has been talks of a second team at Rare, but that's still only speculation until they actually announce something.
To me, the combined forces of Rare, Playtonic and Gory Detail represent the spirit of "old Rare".
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Yes, the first level was ridiculously big, didn't touch the rest.
I had a very similar experience. It had some camera and performance issues for sure, but overall I had a really enjoyable time 100%-ing it. It was very much in line with what I was expecting when I backed it.
It apparently was under-shipped to stores and didn't even land in the top 100 in video game sales at Amazon, and currently has about 100 viewers on Twitch. Huge success!
Nah, it's nostalgia bias. I've always been a big Rare fan, and Nintendo is my shit. VP and SoT are both top tier Rare games.
Having played like half of it, Im really not seeing the big distinction. Yooka takes some of the core (its a 2d platformer with a jumproll mechanic and theres 4-5 additional things to collect each level), but the way it expands on that with its central final stage gimmick, the involved overworld, and solving puzzles to switch up stages all give it its own flavor. Its exactly the sort of thing Rare used to do. If Impossible Lair is a corny clone, so are all of the games Camjo listed - particularly since some of them do even less to mix it up. Also what trends were some of those games chasing? Diddy Kong Racing came one year after Mario Kart 64 and the list of notable kart racers in the wake of the original Mario Kart is slim. What Zelda clones was Star Fox Adventures following?
A lot of people are sleeping on Rusty Pup!! I love Sea of Thieves and like both of Playtonic's games, but Rusty Pup is the one that most feels like it slipped out of a mirror universe where Rare didnt stop pumping out games.
It's not they have a team dedicated to Sea of Thieves while they have another working on what is more than likely another new IP
Unity does some stuff great out of the box, while other basic functions are difficult to execute or find a good system to handle that component; just trying to get collision working properly, gameplay mechanics, load times, or a thousand other issues takes time...development challenges that are hard for the developer to overcome suck tremendous amounts of time and resources from game teams....some of these issues get ironed out and you don't see the effort and time spent to complete. The player only gets to see what made it into a shipped product; we didn't get to see the bugs, issues, frame-rate crippling, game crashing issues this new team no doubt faced head on during their first solo development. Stuff they had an entire team for at Rare was now on the plates of only a handful of people. What that often means, is teams spend less time working on the actual game because they are just trying to overcome engine, and indie teething problems. The engine evolved A LOT since the first game. Playtonic also inherited all the knowledge and tools created from the previous title to hit the ground running for the sequel.
I've always felt pretty confident that the second team's game could be a 2020 title for the launch of the Scarlett. Releasing another game only 2 years after SoT would be impressive for today's Rare! Maybe 2021 at the latest if it doesn't make launch.
The very best case scenario that could come from this for me would be Rare falling into a rhythm of releasing a game every two years from here on out. This would make sense as it would give both teams about 4 years to make their games. It took the SoT team about 4 years to make the game and assuming they had started another project in 2018, they could be finished in 2022. Meanwhile the second team could start a new game in 2020 after releasing their launch title and could be done in 2024, etc, etc, etc.
I'd be the happiest person in the world to see this happen, but I'm sure it's only a pipedream. I doubt the SoT team started another project in 2018 and I wouldn't be surprised if they are exclusively working on SoT while the second team is the only one working on something new.
This would be too much of a good thing and it makes too much sense. Oh well.
Nah, Sea of Thieves is easily one of the best games they've done. Such an amazing experience.
basically.
Viva Piñata is great on so many levels for a variety of reasons. It's a game that would work just as well on mobile/tablet as it does console.
It could be "modernised" with MTX and stuff and still be great. It's a game that would be perfect for Switch. It can be turned into a social game, or a single player only game.
it's just a versatile franchise.
Ding Ding Ding!
Even if Rare was still only making games for Nintendo, they wouldn't be making games exactly like they did during the 64 Era. There is a certain group of gamers who want to keep playing the same typo game over and over again, but there are few developers who want to make the same type of game over and over again.
Rare is more alive than it has been for the past 15+ years.
They've staffed up and are now 2 full teams. They are working on another game next to their continued support of Sea of Thieves.
They've staffed up and are now 2 full teams. They are working on another game next to their continued support of Sea of Thieves.
I noticed OP like to make up a narrative in his head and pass it off as fact.
Rare lost the entire staff that made them special years ago. Even if they did a platform game (which they won't), there is no guarantee it would be a good one.
Yeah, it was. Not perfect, not as good as BK, but pretty great is about right.
Too many people have trouble nowadays navigating moderately large 3d environments without minimap and objective markers it seems.
I'll be getting this one before the end of the year I hope.
Yeah, I enjoyed it for sure - even with some flaws. I think they could nail it with another shot. Hopefully the reception to this game doesn't derail a proper follow-up (though I ended up buying this most recent game even knowing I don't have time to play it yet).
Same, but that's their problem now. We need a sequel to the original, a sequel to Impossible Lair, a new game from them and for them to do DKC for Nintendo and Banjo for Microsoft. They can rest when they get old :)
Development is difficult, so there's never any guarantees, but people also said they lost those that made them special years ago and still some of their ex-staff managed to establish Playtonic and are doing good games now.
Agreed. I would argue that Playtonic is actually more "Rare" these days, than the company that works with MS
This narrative has been spread for over 15 years now. It wasn't true then and it still isn't true now. There are still quite a few people from the old days left there, but not everybody is going to bother to do their research, so they're just going to repeat what they've heard on the internet.
Frankly, I kinda don't understand this obsession that people have with Rare's "old" talent. It's been two decades since the SNES and N64. Many of these people are in their forties and fifties at this point. Some might even be in their sixties at this point (Grant Kirkhope will be turning 60 next year, for example)! These people are literally getting old. It's as if gamers only want these people to be making games for them and nobody else.
At some point, you gotta accept the fact that things change and plenty of younger talent are getting hired at Rare. And I don't see how they're any less talented than a group of people who are approaching old age.
What's the cheapest way to buy this game btw, just anywhere digitally I suppose(as opposed to physical)?
I certainly hope so. Two year gaps between major releases would be the dream. With a third, smaller, team working on projects and partnerships such as Rare Replay, Banjo in Smash and Dlala's Battletoads.
I'll let the evidence speak for itself though. Afaik Rare hasn't actually announced a second full-scale team. It's mostly just been us (forum dwellers) speculating on Rare's current structure. I don't doubt that they have someone working on a new project. It's the current size of that team that I'm more unsure of. Personally I don't believe it's a
Luckily we'll know more in a year or two.
It's especially ridiculous when you consider the fact that only 1/3 of Playtonic worked at Rare during the "golden age". The second third joined Rare in the 2000s and the last third never worked at Rare to begin with. If you want a studio that has a 100% percentage of veteran Rare devs, then Gory Detail is the only option out there.
That special time is 20 years ago. Meanwhile people like Gregg Mayles and Robin Beanland are still at the company. Their studio has grown to 240+ employees these past years. I think Rare is as healthy as its ever been under MS.
Yeah Gregg Mayles being there is what gives me the slightest hope of getting true Banjo Kazooie successor.
I think Gregg is the main reason why Rare hasn't done anything with Banjo for so long.
Whitout nostalgia factor, rare games of 90s (especially 3D ones) are average games at most.
Both Yooka-Layle are as good as the 90's rare games, but the people who play have no emotional ties to the characters, no emotional memories with the games.
And I say that from personal experience. Never had an N64. I went to play Banjo-Kazooie a couple of years ago and found it pretty bad.
Both Yooka-Layle are as good as the 90's rare games, but the people who play have no emotional ties to the characters, no emotional memories with the games.
And I say that from personal experience. Never had an N64. I went to play Banjo-Kazooie a couple of years ago and found it pretty bad.
Goldeneye was a cultural phenomenon in the west, moved console FPS gaming forward, and will forever be remembered as a landmark game for the rest of time. Viva Piñata will never carry that kind of caché. Just because you're too young to have lived through that or because you personally preferred Viva Piñata to Goldeneye doesn't mean that VP was as significant or as good for its time as Goldeneye. That's not nostalgia, it's having the maturity to distinguish your own personal preferences from the broader consensus.
Doesn't Playtonic have a page on their website where they literally list every single person that works at the studio and talk about their backgrounds? You'd think more people would pay attention.
It's also funny how people used to point to Free Radical as the "true Rare" when there was only ever Graeme Norgate and like 4 other designers there from Rare, right? And they were all only from the Goldeneye and Perfect Dark team anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Sounds like Playtonic is the new Free Radical in that sense. :p
Also, I feel like my previous post may have sounded a bit dismissive towards Rare's golden era talent? That wasn't my intent at all. I'm not dismissing them because of their age or anything like that and the people that worked there during Rare's heyday are all incredibly talented folks and they're no doubt still talented today. It's just that some people seem to treat them as immortal beings and that nobody else should be making games but them.
Time moves on. People get older. Things change. New generations of developers come onto the scene. New devs learn from old devs and hopefully make something even better. That's the mindset more people should have because that's just reality. People don't stay the same age forever.
It's a mix of fanboyism and misinformation. This has been a thing with Playtonic from the start. Already back in 2015 there were people who treated it as the literal reformation of the DKC/Banjo team. Those people don't really care about the facts. A bunch of them are still pissed that Rare doesn't make games for Nintendo platforms, and they're looking for any reason to declare Rare as "dead". Obviously some people are just parroting things they've read on the web, and don't really have an ulterior motive though.
The funny thing is that it's going on with Playtonic too, in a way. I've already seen several people credit David Wise for The Impossible Lair songs he didn't write.
(I'm in no way saying that Rare's management and efforts under Xbox shouldn't be criticized btw. I have several complaints myself. I'm just commenting on the extreme hyperbole with comments such as "Rare is dead", "Rare is irrelevant", "All the good people have left Rare" and so forth.)
Very good point, and hopefully Playtonic is looking to the future as well. Andy Robinson (ex-Playtonic guy) recently tweeted about the team behind The Impossible Lair, and there are a bunch of new names in there.
That would be an interesting pick. W&W is one of the few Rare made IPs that Rare/Xbox doesn't have the license to (which is why it wasn't in Rare Replay). I don't remember which company it is, but they haven't done anything with it afaik.
None of the original designers behind W&W work at Rare, Playtonic or Gory Detail though.