Whatever Happened to Rare?

"Rare used to be a powerhouse studio…What happened?"

[panasonic23]

RARE most talented developers left Rare before MS brought them.

[NYC_Gamer]

yeah many of them are still with Nintendo

[Bereaver]

I was about to say the same thing.

The company itself changed as soon as it started taking money.

[toaster]

RARE died after Viva Pinata.

[BrianB]

actually most of them went and formed Free Radical creator of the TimeSplitter Series, and Haze but that game sucked hard and left the company defunct, untill Crytek purchased them and changed the name to Crytek UK

[OneSneakyMofo]

R.I.P. Rare; your Battletoads kicked my ass.

[TreMillz]

Microsoft happened.

[Blaze929]

most of the key people who made Rare, "Rare" - left. Simple as that. People say all the time, "oh, a few people leaving shouldve effect the entire company" - wrong.

Like Itagki leaving Team Ninja, you will see. If Kojima left Kojima Productions, you'd see. Same goes for Rare with Martin Hollis, David Doak, Tim and Chris Stamper, etc.

People blaming Microsoft are just fooling themselves.

[Nitrowolf2]

I can understand this, but the question is, would they have left later if they stuck with Nintendo? I mean MS buying could have made them leave, who knows, but it would seem like that if they left before the buyout

@Below
Yeah Wiki says that Tim and Chris left to pursue other opportunities, Martin left to join Free Radical and help produce some games, and David Doak went on to help with Gamecube development later founding his own company. IDK it just seems that they left for other reason then. Also looking at history of Rare they seem to have left the company well before MS actually bought all the shares.

[Count]

That's the thing.

People are speculating and acting like their speculation is a fact.

[RockmanII7]

I hope your wrong, or else Megaman Legends 3 will probably suck (Keiji Inafune, creator of Megaman, left Capcom earlier this year).

[shoddy]

MS bought them then they disappear.

Killler Insticnt and Donkey Kong Country are awesome quality games.

[gamerdude132]

Before you people start accusing Microsoft for it (they've done a lot of wrong, but just finish reading), know that the developers left RARE and went to none other than Free Radical and created the true spiritual successors to GoldenEye and Perfect Dark: TimeSplitters. They now work under CryTek as CryTek UK.

[shoddy]

Parfect Dark is a long time ago. I wonder what they have next?

[Black-Helghast]

Dude Killer Insticnt is my favorite fighting game! I wish they made another one.. :(

[Shepherd 214]

Some developers make the transition to newer generations better than others.

[Shok]

Microsoft is what happened.

[Pehdahosman]

Kameo was the last true rare classic it was also my GOTY 05. I hope rare gets back on their feet and makes a new killer instinct,a new Kameo and a new conker those will help rare get back to their 1990s glory if those don't work than Rare is a lost cause.

[Moonboots]

Kameo was a great! Your comment sums up my thoughts on Rare as well.

[cb4g]

I always passed up on Kameo, now I regret it! Was it really that good? I've heard mixed reviews.

A true Conker game would be nice!

[Pehdahosman]

yes dude try out its that awesome Kameo its great.but its short good thing its only 5$ =)

[jdnorthwest]

Change happens. Turn over and the merging of development teams should be a good thing. However the market is looking for the familiar, and people enjoy playing the same thing time and time again.

[Lirky]

Well rareware rare were bought by microsoft to develope games exclusively for microsoft so their microsofts first party studio.

But rare did not realease any games of lately that were like mascot type games. Unless they are waiting for E3 11' to show some new games.

[Bathyj]

The talent left to make Free Radical and then they got Microsoft all over them.

[sp1deynut]

...you mean the same "talent" that made Haze, then promptly got shut-the-f-down? I guess THEY "got Sony all over them", eh? :)

EDIT: @Nitrowolf...

No, Ubisoft DID NOT "own" FR....they merely published Haze for the PS3 (apparently because Sony had no interest in it). FR was independent, until Crytek purchased them, and they became Crytek UK.

[Nitrowolf2]

@Above, oh okay thanks for correcting me

It's a shame really how Rare started out to be one of the best team ever, to now being among the bottom.

[MajestieBeast]

They made time splitters fool. Microsoft put them on crappy projects like avatars and kinect sports and then they demolished banjo and kazooie.

[sp1deynut]

Ummm...NO, they didn't. FREE RADICAL made Time Splitters, AFTER they left RARE, and WELL before this generation even started. There is ZERO connection between Free Radical and what RARE has done under MS.

[Bathyj]

Yes, of course, someone was always imediately going to bring up Haze. A game panned so badly, you'd think it was an unplayable random display of colours that somehow, gave your console a virus. Of course, if you actually played it, it was merely just an average generic shooter that play smoothly and was just a bit boring.

So Free Radical make a game that gets rubbished mainly cos it was an early PS3 exclusive, some fool blogger mentioned "Hallokiller" so it had that going against it too, and basically, it just wasn't up to FR's normally high standards.

Now, anyone, anyone at all, care to write a list of games not up to the usually high standards of Rare? It would be a long list, I cant do it cos I've already rambled on for so long.

Rare has been a downhillslidingpileofmediocrit y since Grabbed by the Ghoulies, their first game under M$ if I remember right. 2 generations of waiting on them and I think even the ardent fan would admit, they've been disapointing. Their brightest spark with M$ would have to be Viva pianta, I must admit, that game showed some of the old magic, but c'mon. 1 game, (and a quick cash-in sequel) in (has it already been) 8 years.

PS
Arent Free Radical working on Crysis 2 now?

[Pehdahosman]

rare has been great under Microsoft you hater and idiot

[Otheros00]

Rare's talent is no more. They should change their name to COMMON becuase that is the level of talent they are at.

[SilverSlug]

I was going to say Below Average, but to be honest, I did enjoy Kameo, Viva Pinata.

[Clarence]

M$ happen to them.

[josephayal]

Thanks Microsoft :(

[HOSe]

timesplitters > rare

ts2 ftw

[MajestieBeast]

Rare will be rememberd for the snes and N64 generations. Beyond those they just became a trainwreck.

[Arnagrim]

Mostly because I would have killed to have Banjo and Kazooie in Super Smash Bros Brawl...

[Jigsaw-]

Gregg Mayles is still there,banjo creator. and some others...

[tunaks1]

their best moved onto freeradical (timesplitters) and is now part of crytek uk. The shell thats left is rare at ms.

[bennyace]

For me, the biggest deception was Banjo-Kazooie. When the teaser came out long before the game. It was nowhere seen that this game would be a "car/vehicule building game". I was so disappointed.

When I look at games like Mario Galaxy I see that a good platformer still has it's place in the gaming market today. They could've done their vehicule building game if they wanted and called it something else with other caracters. But you don't ruin a franchise like Banjo with a game like that. Banjo is a platformer game caracter. The worlds they could've built on the 360 would've been awsome. Anyways, after that I lost all hope in RARE. Kameo was fun tough...

[bligmerk]

Some people need to get their facts straight. The Rare founders left *after* being bought by Microsoft. Microsoft has a pretty well established track history of killing off every game development studio they have ever bought including Digital Anvil, Ensemble Studios and several others. The most common comment is there is something about Microsoft corporate that creative developers find is like a poison. In contrast, most game studios that Sony has bought often state how much they enjoy the nurturing environment Sony provides.

[darkvenom]

Microsoft...Killer Insinct 2. Please!

[soundslike]

just FYI, as mentioned the real RARE talent (works 2 ways heh) left the company and made Timesplitters, but since then they are now at Crytek UK collaborating on Crysis 2 multiplayer.

Yes haze sucked. They just do multiplayer better. Now they have a chance to focus on that.

[TheColbertinator]

Microsoft happened.

RIP Rare

[gii bro]

Rare are nothing without Nintendo & even less with Microsoft.

[Silber]

I stil have hope for rare. Kameo and viva pinata where both great games. So there is a.good potential in rare, but they does not show it in the actual game generation.

[ghostgaming]

People left - we all know that. Here is the issue, have they been replaced with quality people - MS needs to invest in the organization to see some good things out of Rare. I have a little hope for Rare - Kameo was ok, the Banjo games were solid (not great), and Wii sports (i mean Kinect sports) is one of the better Kinect games.

MS needs to invest time and money into Rare - split it into 2 teams. A kinect team and a core team to make games like Killer Instinct and Perfect Dark.