Fans of Rare’s famous franchises Perfect Dark, Conker, Banjo-Kazooie, and Killer Instinct should be crossing their fingers. During the aftermath of today’s Xbox One reveal, Microsoft has announced that one of Rare’s historic franchises is going to find a new home on its next generation console.
This latest news comes as quite a surprise, since gamers would have expected an announcement of this caliber to be revealed at Microsoft’s Xbox One event, not after the party calmed down. However, this revived Rare franchise is going to be joining 15 other games, all exclusive to the Xbox One. These exclusive titles are being developed by first-party studios like Remedy and Turn 10, and were promised by Microsoft that they will be ready for release in the first year of the new console’s shelf life.
In an interview with Polygon, Microsoft Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer had a lot to say about this new development, on what Rare fans can expect, and why such an announcement was kept from the limelight.
“Fans of Rare and Rare IPs I think will be pleased with what we’re going to show at E3,” Spencer said. “We had a limited amount of time today and a lot of story to tell. But Rare remains an incredibly important part of our development capability.”
Spencer goes on to say that this historic IP will play an important role in the future of the Xbox One.
Rare Ltd. was purchased by Microsoft in 2002 and retained rights to their legendary franchises Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Perfect Dark and Killer Instinct. This partnership led to some of these franchises appearing on the Xbox 360 (XBLA), as well as leading Rare to develop new IPs like Kameo: Elements of Power, Viva Piñata and Kinect Sports exclusively for Microsoft’s console.
It’s unknown which franchise will be making a comeback, but there has been past developments that might show some hints. Rare’s classic fighting game Killer Instinct had its trademark renewed in Sept. 2012 by Microsoft, leading to the speculation that it will be the historic franchise that will be returning for an Xbox One release.
