Rare's N64 Team Offer New Details on Banjo Kazooie Spiritual Successor

Playtonic Games, the new UK studio formed by a group of decorated Rare developers, has revealed more details of its Banjo Kazooie spiritual successor.

The unnamed game, known internally as Project Ukulele, is expected to be a 3D platformer with Rare's signature '90s gameplay and humor. Prior to this weekend, only a teaser image of the project had been shown, but on Saturday the studio arrived at the EGX Rezzed event in London to reveal new concept art. You can see the new images, which highlight the game's vibrant, colorful worlds, below.

Gavin Price, the studio's co-founder, told attendees at EGX Rezzed that his team is hoping to breathe new life into the platform genre.

"We're not looking to just rehash games from our past, we want to take advantage of big technology leaps since the last time we made a 3D platform game, which was fifteen years ago," he said.

He also revealed that the team is hoping to fund the project via Kickstarter. The full EGX Rezzed presentation can be found in the video above.

Playtonic was formed by Price and Chris Sutherland, two highly experienced Rare developers who were laid off in the summer last year.

Price started out in quality assurance at Rare, working on a broad range of N64 games, from Jet Force Gemini to Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Banjo Tooie, and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Later he went on to design some of Rare's more modern work, such as Kinect Sports.

Sutherland, meanwhile, is a coder whose influence at the studio dates back to the late '80s when he was hired as an engineer. Sutherland, who also provided the voices of Banjo and Kazooie, was instrumental in coding Rare's most iconic games, such as Donkey Kong Country.

The two are joined by Steve Mayles, a renowned artist who created the Banjo Kazooie characters. Three other developers currently work at the studio, while Grant Kirkhope--a famed composer for many Rare games--has been hired for Playtonic's first game.