Rare LTD Working on Next “AAA Adventure” and It Looks like It’s Not a Kinect Game

Rare LTD studios has been known for bringing us some amazing games. Titles like Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Perfect Dark rank high on the list of their accomplishments. Sadly many people thought the company lost its edge when transferring from Nintendo to Microsoft/Xbox, where they became primarily known for Kinect Based games.

This left a sour taste in gamers mouths as they recall what gaming goodness Rare used to pump out.

Fear not my friends, based on some new information, Rare may indeed be back working on AAA games, and it has promise not to be a Kinect avatar game!

From The Mouths of Xbox

If you listen to IGN’s Podcasts Unlocked, you would have heard discussion between IGN and Microsoft’s Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer. During the podcast, Spencer talks about the importance of Kinect Sports:

“on Kinect Sports, it plays a role in our portfolio, and I think it’s great that it’s in the market, and I wouldn’t say we’d never do anything else with Kinect Sports.”

Spencer goes on to comment on Rare’s relationship with the Kinect Series:

What I said is that I don’t want Rare to just become the Kinect Sports team. There are potentially other people that could do a Kinect Sports game.

While Kinect Sports was Rare’s most commercially successful game, that doesn’t mean they have to keep pumping them out. In fact the team seems to be hard at work on a new project from what we see in their job openings. 

Truth In The Description

Recently placing adds up for Principle Technical Artist, Software Engineer Services, User Experience Lead, and Software Engineer in Rendering, Rare has been hard at work getting the right people for this project. 

As you can see, the Software Engineer positions state the words “Rare is already deep into the development of its next eye-opening AAA adventure.”  We can only assume one of two things, the game will be an adventure type game or it is something new for the studio to tackle in terms of project depth.

Also mentioned in the Software Engineer- Services posting, is something of an interest:

The ideal candidate for this role will have a strong web services development and programming background ideally for Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.   The candidate will be proficient with C# and multithreaded programming, using accepted best practice and test methodologies.

Notice how Azure Cloud services is an ideal characteristic for applicants to have? For those of you don’t know, Azure cloud storage has been what online matches in Titanfall are played on. This could mean the game is set to be an online game, which is an interesting prospect.

Also, the game is set to be developed with the Unreal engine, according to the Principle Technical Artist listing. The post says “experience with Unreal Engine or equivalent” as being a plus for the position.  

While not a lot to go on, there have been rumors circulating the web about a E3 2015 reveal and how it just might be Banjo-Kazooie 3. While this is expected to be just hype, a comment from NeoGA’s “Kampfheld”, someone who has been very reliable with his gaming predictions in the past, had this to say:

 While many of you aren’t versed in Morse Code, here is a translation:

“B-K E3 2015”

 While we can’t count much for vague information these days, with all this piling up, we can see that Rare is gearing up for a big game release. I say keep your eyes peeled this coming E3, as we may see the fruits of Rare’s labor come to light.

I reached out to Rare for a comment, and will update you when I hear back.