Former Rare Developer Shares New Details About Conker's Cancelled Sequel

Wish they actually made it.

Loved Conker’s BFD, would absolutely dig a sequel. The big mighty poo is still one of the most memorable bosses to date.

Whould have love too play this

@JDavies so memorable, in fact, that you can't remember his actual name.

I loved Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Would have been nice if this sequel came about.

A great unique game, loved the humour. Technically it really pushed the N64 to its limits.... A sequel would have been amazing.

I wonder why they are just now giving us new details about the Conker Sequel.........Oh god please say this is still happening. There is no reason at all for Microsoft to not allow this game to be made. Heck, I beg that Nintendo pulls a Bayonetta 2 and funds this and other Rare games. Rareware did say a while back that anyone could fund their games at this point.

@patbacknitro18 The problem is lack of talent, really. There's barely anyone from the old-school Rare who actually is still with the company and it will be nearly impossible to make a modern sequel to one of their most beloved platformers.

The only value Rare really even has nowadays is their IPs, whether anybody wants to buy their IP's is an entirely separate question.

@Varkster Lack of talent isn't really the issue, it's Microsoft's mismanagement. How can you blame Rareware when Microsoft not only funds them so little that Rareware made a public statement saying that anyone could fund a game from them at this point, to the fact that Microsoft forced them to make crappy Microsoft Motion games for so many years (Forgot what the motion gameplay thing was called). I bet they could still make good games, but they need better managment.

All i'm saying is Nintendo confirmed it would be reviving a game series thought to be dead. Considering how Buddy, Buddy Microsoft has been with Nintendo lately, I can only beg to god the game series being revived is a Rareware series.

"Conker's cancelled sequel"

That's a werid name for a game.

@patbacknitro18
Just give up, bro. Rare is dead and has been for almost 2 decades now

True story: about a year after it was first released, I got a monthly catalogue from a department store in the mail which listed a bunch of N64 games for $30 AUD, including Conker. Pretty sweet, I thought, and went down there on the morning it opened, to pick up this cult classic that I'd always wanted.
And it was like a mini Black Friday! As the roller doors opened, parents pushed their kids underneath; people were sprinting to the home entertainment section... everybody wanted Conker! I was too cool for all that so by the time I got there they were all taken; I even offered a guy $60 for his and was turned down (by this point CBFD was so rare it was almost unattainable).
I learned some lessons that day. I shouldn't have underestimated the popularity of a "hidden gem cult classic". I shouldn't have underestimated those around me. And I learned that I shouldn't hold back when something I want is within my grasp.
To Conker! The immature mature game that delivers life lessons while making you roll a ball of dung up a hill.

man, what couldve been. i fear that theyre only telling us this cause they know its never gonna be made, poor rare

@Timsworld2 I think it's because characters such as Conker and Banjo Kazooie went over to Microsoft, whereas Donkey Kong had always been owned by Nintendo.
I remember when they made Diddy Kong Racing DS, Banjo and Conker were replaced.

Chris Seavor recently made a new game not too long back called "The Unlikely Legend of Rusty Pup"

It plays a lot like a Lemmings game and highly recommend it to anyone who's a fan of his stuff!

Was this canceled during the GC time, or the Xbox time? Nintendo basically tried to cover up Bad Fur Day. I remember only subscribing to Nintendo Power back then and hearing about Conker 64, then around Jan 2001 everything disappearing when NP refused to talk about M rated games moving forward, and changed their rating system to stars because Perfect Dark was their highest rated game.

@keyblade_zero
Maybe, but the music and hurling bog rolls is still clear as day

@Trajan Other Bad Day was canceled during the Gamecube days. These documents were created in december 2001. After Other Bad Day, Chris Seavor worked in 2002 on Arc Angel, which was also canceled by Rare and Quest, a MMO for Gamecube, which was put on hold when the Microsoft deal happened.

After the deal, Seavor wanted to make a "Team Fortress" like game ( he was a big fan of the game at the time) in the Conker universe and so the development of Live & Reloaded started.

Still remember purchasing CBFD in stores...the bag around it so kids wouldn't see it. Loved it since day one, and it was the first N64 game I played all the way through...great game for a system that I couldn't stand the controller. I also remember nintendo really putting the game down and barely (if not at all) mentioning it. Rare was a great company back in the days, but anymore, as they're controlled by Microsoft, they're not doing much at all. To anyone that wants to replay this gem, it is on the Rare Replay disc for XBONE, and they didn't cut it like they did on the Xbox version (that version was a little too cut).

Kickstarter, here we come!

Such a shame to see one of the best dev studios of its time be completely destroyed by Microshaft and their shady tactics. The only reason Microshaft bought majority of shares in Rareware was purely to steal them away from Nintendo. Because they literally did jack with the company once it became theirs. They just lit a match and watched it slowly burn, content in the fact that Nintendo had lost its strong right arm.

@Varkster Why would it be nearly impossible to make a sequel to a rare title, assuming it’s an IP they still own (Banjo, Conker etc). If anything having fresh staff rather than Rares original team could be a good thing if you asked me. I mean sure, the team were the pinnacle of the industry 20 years ago but things have moved on. We saw some of those staff try their hand with Yooka Laylee which was a mess so perhaps fresh perspective would be good.

In terms of viability I think Mario Odyssey shows the platforming genre has potential if the developers are prepared to bring in some modern day game design sensibilities. Crash Remastered, Spyro etc shows there’s still huge interest in 90s platforming IP also.

Only saw a little of the intro of the first game and never played it, looks hilarious though.

Wish they'd bring it back.. Too bad Rare won't do anything with it, why not just let Nintendo buy the rights along with Banjo? We could do with an adult theme game like that, there's nothing else really like it.

Former Rare Developer Shares New Details About Conker's Cancelled Sequel
For a brief moment, I thought this was about Young Conker.

I should hope that game is cancelled; Microsoft showed it once, and never again since then.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: CONTAINS EXPLICIT HUMOUR

If it wasn't nasty, I'd play Bad Fur Day.

Hopefully someone remakes it.

@Timsworld2 Well Nintendo owns Donkey Kong. Any Donkey Kong Rareware made game they can re-release because they own the rights to it. Funny enough when Microsoft bought Rareware, they were having a party because they thought that they now owned the rights to the DKC series, but Rare had to correct them lol. But that aside, Nintendo actually cared about Conkers adult themes far more than Microsoft did. While Microsoft remade Conker and censored a ton of the game, when Nintendo released Conkers Bad Fur Day, they gave out Beer and Condoms to promote it.

@KayFiOS Um, that game was actually released. It was a VR/AR like game, and it was as bad as you can imagine. You can see why no one even know it was launched.

@patbacknitro18 Holy crap. Even the fan wiki says it was cancelled. I know it's not a 100% reliable source, but this shows how indifferent fans were to its release.

Hm, so... I see that even Chris Seavor, a native English speaker, has trouble correctly spelling "would have thought"....

@KayFiOS You can find a few letsplays of it on Youtube. But ya hardly anyone even knows it did launch, and that's probably a good thing. Let it have as few sales as possible to show Microsoft to stop screwing with the Rare properties like that.

It would have been amazing to see how Rare's franchises could have evolved. Sadly Microsoft is not a good fit for them.

@Ensemen actually, if they did make it all these years later, it’d be the perfect name for it!

@patbacknitro18 From what I read, Nintendo actually made Rare publish it themselves after the game was changed from Twelve Tales to CBFD.
Even allowing Conker to have its adult humor was scary new territory for them back when the change was announced in 2000 (and people thought it was one of EGM's annual April Fools jokes).

@KingMike I believe they did, But Nintendo still helped promote the game, by handing out Beers and Condoms no less. While Nintendo trys staying Family Friendly, they have proven time and time again that they can handle mature games perfectly. With Bayonetta 2, Nintendo not only funded the game but offered resources that would help with the development of the game. This allowed Nintendo to have a pretty big word in how the game should be developed. And Nintendo themselves said that Bayonetta 2 needed to up the adult content from 1, including giving Bayonetta a more revealing outfit. They've dabbled with more mature games over the years, not necissarily 1st party but on a 3rd party basis. And considering how open Nintendo has become with games like South Park releasing on the Switch, I have no doubt that they could pull off some magic if they funded a Conker Sequel.

Never thought we'd get more info about this game. Nice of Chris to divulge more of what could've been.

@patbacknitro18 do you have a source to that Rare statement about funding? Can’t find it anywhere

@fafonio Funny enough it was an article on this site, and I thought I was going crazy as I couldn't find it either. But I did find it, and the reason it was hard to find was that it was just a "tiny" cliff note at the end of this Banjo for Smash Ultimate article. The studio head at Rare flat out said that he's willing to give their IP's to 3rd party studios. Which I think would count for Nintendo if they funded the project as they did with Bayonetta 2. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/03/xboxs_phil_spencer_is_still_open_to_banjo_and_kazooie_appearing_in_super_smash_bros

@frogopus The same thing can be said about Final Fantasy 7. But how many people do you think are going to ride the hype train of the FF7 remake? If a new Banjo Kazooie came out, it would become massively successful due to 2 reasons. 1. The Banjo fans who are glad a new game is finally being made. and 2. The normie casual audience who just wants to ride whatever popular game of the month is. Chances are anyone in this audience has never played a Banjo and Kazooie game, but because it's the newest and 3rd entry in the series, they must play it and make posts all about it just because it's whats in at that point in time.

@patbacknitro18 wow thanks man for the article! I’m a massive BK fan and my biggest gaming wish I have is either for BK to appear at smash or have the franchise in a Nintendo console or a sequel.

@fafonio Same. Also ever since I heard the news that Nintendo was going to be bringing back a franchise that was thought to be dead, makes me beg to god that it's going to be a new Banjo and Kazooie. There has also been a lot of talk about Banjo and Kazooie being at E3 in some way by a lot of sources, including Banjo's creator even hinting at it. And after reading that article about them considering letting other companies use their IP's, that makes me really hopeful that Nintendo managed to work something out with Rare and Microsoft.

Reading this breaks my heart so damn badly. Makes me even sadder that this was never made.

Oh its so painful to see how awesome this could have been. I'm sure you could release a book named 'Videogaming Tragedies - Games That Were Never Made'.

Sucks that Rare's greatest characters are no longer put to use, or at least not in the way we all envisage. Maybe Microsoft could loan the IP out to Playtonic?

Wow! I want this. KickStarter anyone ?

Man! That sounds amazing!!!

I never played Conker on N64 - has it aged well?

As for Microsoft buying Rare, I think we all knew it was the beginning of the end. But I believe Microsoft had good intentions, seeing as they put Rare in charge of Kinect Sports, which was supposed to be their Wii Sports killer and major Kinect promoter, and so was a massive part of the Xbox plan.

Looks so promising, I can easily imagine it based on these descriptions. Another what could have been. Wish there was a way to make it happen.

@Varkster There's plenty of "Old Rare" still at the company. Certainly more than there is at Playtonic.