Latest news with #Rare
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever
Donkey Kong is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, and one of the earliest. Yet despite remaining relevant for the bulk of the past 40 years, none of the major Donkey Kong games since the 1980s have been made by any of Nintendo's internal Japanese studios, meaning the character has become a bit of a nebulous B-tier entity next to Mario and company. With the Big N solidifying its properties through movies and theme parks, as well as new games, a Donkey Kong reclamation was inevitable. The surprising part is that Nintendo threw its absolute best at the franchise. Donkey Kong Bananza is not only a contender for the best game the series has ever produced, it gives other contemporary games a run for their money when it comes to sheer fun, constant innovation and technological achievement. In the first year of the original Nintendo Switch, the company reasserted its place among the best game-makers by combining industry trends such as open-world design with its Mario and Zelda franchises to produce unexpected, delightful and utterly inimitable games. And now at the beginning of the Switch 2, Bananza sends the message that it's not slowing down. Created by the team behind Super Mario Odyssey, it combines elements of Minecraft -like permanent terrain alteration with Mario-level control and acrobatics, an evolved take on 3D platformer collectables, heaps of fresh ideas and plenty of inspiration from the past Donkey Kongs developed by Rare and Retro Studios. It has the climb-anywhere style of the recent Zeldas, but also the cathartic ability to tunnel through and destroy just about anything you see. It also sets a new tone and visual design for the series and character, which feels current but is perfectly in line with the arcade original. Bananza is set far away from DK Island, where our hero (and seemingly every other ape and monkey) is investigating a massive cache of underground gold. Donkey Kong is more interested in Banandium Gems, special jewels that look and apparently taste like the delicious yellow fruit, but unfortunately the evil Void Kong also has his eye on them. After a dastardly scheme sinks the mine deep into the ground, DK finds himself in a subterranean world populated by all sorts of weird creatures, and partners with a lost tween named Pauline (a young take on the damsel character from the arcade game) to head to the planet core. DK's abilities seem simple – you can jump, roll, punch forward, down and up, grab stuff, slap the ground and whistle – but it all adds up to a very satisfying arsenal that's easy to deploy. You can smash directly down into the ground, or rip chunks of rock out of the wall. You can combine rolls and jumps to cover huge distances. You can surf on hunks of concrete over hazardous terrain, or use a kind of sonar to detect goodies underground and tunnel right through them. And it feels heavy, crunchy and satisfying, like the very essence of the character's benevolent aggression. The central loop of the game is pretty simple too. You're steadily descending through layers, each one with a wildly different theme and inhabitants, and each with a number of sub-layers. Most have an elder to meet, who is of course a DJ, and because Pauline has a talent for singing, she can learn a magical song from each one. That's how you unlock transformations for DK. Several of these are just hideously jacked animals with angry faces and all the aesthetic appeal of the worst AFL mascots – an ostrich, a zebra – but intentionally and humorously so, and they come with abilities you will need to explore and progress.
The Age
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever
Donkey Kong is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, and one of the earliest. Yet despite remaining relevant for the bulk of the past 40 years, none of the major Donkey Kong games since the 1980s have been made by any of Nintendo's internal Japanese studios, meaning the character has become a bit of a nebulous B-tier entity next to Mario and company. With the Big N solidifying its properties through movies and theme parks, as well as new games, a Donkey Kong reclamation was inevitable. The surprising part is that Nintendo threw its absolute best at the franchise. Donkey Kong Bananza is not only a contender for the best game the series has ever produced, it gives other contemporary games a run for their money when it comes to sheer fun, constant innovation and technological achievement. In the first year of the original Nintendo Switch, the company reasserted its place among the best game-makers by combining industry trends such as open-world design with its Mario and Zelda franchises to produce unexpected, delightful and utterly inimitable games. And now at the beginning of the Switch 2, Bananza sends the message that it's not slowing down. Created by the team behind Super Mario Odyssey, it combines elements of Minecraft -like permanent terrain alteration with Mario-level control and acrobatics, an evolved take on 3D platformer collectables, heaps of fresh ideas and plenty of inspiration from the past Donkey Kongs developed by Rare and Retro Studios. It has the climb-anywhere style of the recent Zeldas, but also the cathartic ability to tunnel through and destroy just about anything you see. It also sets a new tone and visual design for the series and character, which feels current but is perfectly in line with the arcade original. Bananza is set far away from DK Island, where our hero (and seemingly every other ape and monkey) is investigating a massive cache of underground gold. Donkey Kong is more interested in Banandium Gems, special jewels that look and apparently taste like the delicious yellow fruit, but unfortunately the evil Void Kong also has his eye on them. After a dastardly scheme sinks the mine deep into the ground, DK finds himself in a subterranean world populated by all sorts of weird creatures, and partners with a lost tween named Pauline (a young take on the damsel character from the arcade game) to head to the planet core. DK's abilities seem simple – you can jump, roll, punch forward, down and up, grab stuff, slap the ground and whistle – but it all adds up to a very satisfying arsenal that's easy to deploy. You can smash directly down into the ground, or rip chunks of rock out of the wall. You can combine rolls and jumps to cover huge distances. You can surf on hunks of concrete over hazardous terrain, or use a kind of sonar to detect goodies underground and tunnel right through them. And it feels heavy, crunchy and satisfying, like the very essence of the character's benevolent aggression. The central loop of the game is pretty simple too. You're steadily descending through layers, each one with a wildly different theme and inhabitants, and each with a number of sub-layers. Most have an elder to meet, who is of course a DJ, and because Pauline has a talent for singing, she can learn a magical song from each one. That's how you unlock transformations for DK. Several of these are just hideously jacked animals with angry faces and all the aesthetic appeal of the worst AFL mascots – an ostrich, a zebra – but intentionally and humorously so, and they come with abilities you will need to explore and progress.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After 11 years of development, 6 years of marketing, and a full reboot, Rare's Everwild has been canceled amid mass Xbox layoffs – 5 months after Phil Spencer's assurances it's making "progress"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Everwild, the gorgeous but mysterious Rare title first announced back in 2019, has been canceled amid the mass layoffs happening today at Xbox. Rare has not yet confirmed the news, but three separate reports now suggest that the game is, indeed, dead. News of Everwild's cancellation was first reported by VGC, which mentioned that "employees are likely to lose their jobs as part of broader restructuring" at the studio. IGN's sources have also corroborated that the game is canceled, as has Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who first reported on today's Xbox layoffs. We'd seen a handful of trailers for Everwild, which offered promises of a big adventure through a strange world filled with unusual animals. The exact details of the gameplay were never clear, but the almost Studio Ghibli-like vibes were enough to catch plenty of attention. Earlier this year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that the game was still making "progress." Reports circulated that Everwild's development had been rebooted in 2021, though Xbox representatives suggested those reports were "a little more extreme" than the truth. However, those same reports alleged that Everwild had been in some form of development since 2014, and a game rarely spends that long in development without some sort of trouble behind the scenes. What the cancellation and the looming layoffs mean for the future of Rare remains to be seen. The studio has a storied history going back to the British computer scene of the '80s, and was a prolific NES developer in its early days. It developed a close partnership with Nintendo throughout the '90s, during which it created the beloved Donkey Kong Country trilogy for the SNES, as well as titles such as GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, and Perfect Dark for the N64. Microsoft's acquisition of Rare in the early '00s shocked the gaming world at the time, and while many of the studio's games under Xbox were quite good - I'll defend Viva Pinata and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts forever - they never made quite the same impact as the earlier Nintendo titles. After years supporting Xbox's ill-fated Kinect peripheral, Rare seemed to finally find its footing with Sea of Thieves, which, while it took some time to really find its footing, proved to be an excellent multiplayer sandbox. Everwild had the potential to be a strong follow-up, but I guess now we'll never know. I expect we'll lose a few more upcoming Xbox Series X games before the day is out. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Another Xbox studio reacts to the layoffs exploding around it: with Rare's Everwild dead, Sea of Thieves dev says "it's impossible for something like this not to ripple through the studio"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Sea of Thieves studio Rare is the next Xbox studio to respond to the recent Microsoft layoffs and in this case, specifically the cancelation of the action-adventure game Everwild. Everwild, first announced in 2019 with a development story going all the way back to 2014, was one of the many casualties of Microsoft's recent downsizing, which resulted in the loss of around 9,000 jobs. We didn't see a whole lot of Everwild in the years since its reveal, but what little we did see of its colorful fantasy world was mighty promising, making its cancelation all the more disappointing for Rare diehards. In July's Sea of Thieves developer update, Rare production director Drew Stevens opened by addressing the elephant in the room, speaking out about the impact of Everwild's cancelation on the overall studio. "I think it would be strange to jump straight into our usual updates without acknowledging the news that we've ended development on Everwild here at Rare," Stevens said. "While this didn't directly impact Sea of Thieves, and we're continuing on as we'd planned, our focus as a team and a studio is on supporting our friends and colleagues whose roles are at risk." The layoffs at Xbox resulted in the cancelation of the Perfect Dark reboot and the shuttering of developer The Initiative, the downsizing of Forza studio Turn 10's workforce by about 50%, and the cancelation of an unannounced ZeniMax Online MMO. Longtime ZeniMax Online studio director Matt Firor of 18 years left the studio in the wake of the news, and later, the studio's union issued a statement on the cancelation, saying "a future has been stolen." "It's impossible for something like this not to ripple through the studio and affect us all in some way or another, so please bear with us," added Stevens. "And on that, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's reached out to check in on us and share their kind words of support. Genuinely, thank you, it really means a lot." As bummed as I am about Everwild, I really do appreciate that Rare took the time to acknowledge the situation instead of just pretending like nothing's happened. I can't fathom the pain and uncertainty at Xbox studios like Rare right now, and I can only hope that being able to continue work on Sea of Thieves gives the developers some sense of poetic escape similar to the whimsical distraction the open seas have provided players like me for years and years. "What happened with Microsoft was clear": Former Square Enix exec says Game Pass, "a service with barely any growth," didn't cause layoffs – competition with AI did Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'There has to be a better way than this': Game developers call Microsoft's latest layoffs 'a colossal waste of talent' from a publisher that seems like it's in 'a death spiral'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Yesterday, despite posting $26 billion in profits and outperforming Wall Street forecasts in the last quarter, Microsoft began its latest round of restructuring with a targeted goal of laying off 9,000 employees. Many of those cuts have affected the Xbox gaming division, leading to cancellations of projects like Rare's Everwild and an unannounced Zenimax MMO, and studio closures for teams like The Initiative, which had been developing the now-cancelled Perfect Dark reboot. Microsoft has now laid off over 20,000 people since the start of 2023. On social media, game developers from solo indies to triple-A studio staff and everything in between have shared their dismay over the continued turmoil affecting their peers and colleagues. "It's heartbreaking to watch what's happening to this industry that I love," said Eric Neustadter, former operations manager at Xbox Live and current VP of technology at The Pokémon Company. "The incentives are misaligned so strongly that fun games and profitable teams aren't what matter." BioWare veteran and current Skate narrative director John Epler said that he's "reeling" over the news that's continuing to break about further Microsoft cuts. "18 years in the industry and I can confidently say this is the grimmest shit has been yet," Epler said. "There has to be a better way than this," said Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail. "There has to be a better games industry than this happening to so many people, over and over and over. This isn't good enough." "The games industry is going to turn me into the joker," said award-nominated Civilization 7 and Marvel's Midnight Suns writer Emma Kidwell. Many devs see Microsoft's layoffs as emblematic of an industry trapped in a doomed pursuit of perpetual growth. "Laying off thousands of people so that your numbers look better for the quarter while making many more billions is such a f'd up reality," said Chandana Ekanayake, co-founder and creative director at Outerloop Games. "Making numbers go up forever is not sustainable and never was. What a colossal waste of talent." "When mass layoffs are just a quarterly event, is this not just a death spiral?" asked Bruno Dias, former lead narrative and systems designer on Fallen London, who notes that Xbox seems to be carving up its own publishing portfolio while it's seemingly moving away from hardware. "Xbox behaves like a company that's been sold to private equity and is having the copper stripped out of the walls." Andrew Carl, systems designer at Respawn, said the newest Microsoft cuts are particularly hard to stomach given the company's heavy investment into the "dumpster fire" of generative AI development. "Reminder that all this carnage at Microsoft is coming at the same time as they are financially doubling down on the agentic & generative AI slop that nobody wants because it lies to you, has terrible security issues, & has untenable energy costs," Carl said. Microsoft said in January that it intends to spend $80 billion on AI this year. Even Seamus Blackley, creator and designer of the original Xbox who left Microsoft in 2002, said that Xbox's current strategy—assuming there is one—is self-defeating. "Think of the number of great games that had troubled development histories. All of them?" Blackley said. "Now consider how often executives cancel troubled games. Smooth development comes only when you take no risks. Greatness comes only when great risks are braved. Do the math." When one of his followers joked that "the math is being done by Copilot," Blackley said "Then it will be wrong, and it will insist it's right." Elsewhere, Firaxis narrative director Cat Manning said what felt like a summation of the entire industry's exhaustion: "I just want to make things that get players excited, man."
