Banjo-Kazooie Composer Has "Zero Hope" For A New Entry

Of course one will happen eventually.... What a weirdly cynical and strangely aggressive tweet. Feels like it came out of nowhere

Just give us Rare Replay so we can play a better version of Banjo Tooie than the awful emulation on the N64 app

The problem is that the series is beloved by Nintendo fans, but is owned by Microsoft who have their own consoles with a fanbase that couldn't care less about Banjo. The series is stuck in a weird middle-ground with almost no options.

Given Microsoft and Nintendo being quite friendly with each other. The best hope for the series is for Microsoft to make a new title aimed specifically at Nintendo players. Or actually collab with Nintendo or Playtonic Games for a new Banjo game.

@thenikdavies he’s a good composer but a bit of a *****. Best to separate the art from the artist.

Given the divisiveness of Tooie, the apathy towards Grunty's Revenge and the continuing vitriol towards Nuts & Bolts, I absolutely think Kirkhope's statement has validity to it - more than most people will want to admit. His point being that most fans wouldn't be satisfied with a new Banjo unless it was exactly like that first one is very true. So true that it's not even limited to Banjo - I've seen plenty of comeback revival games be heavily scrutinized for not living up to predetermined and unrealistic fan expectations in one way or another.

Although it may have come off as a bit harsh, I can see where he's coming from. Expectations would be extremely high for a new banjo. Especially against two classic games, coupled with the nostalgia for the classic games. That being said, I would love a new banjo game!!!

"2:03AM"... checks out.
Despite the wording, he does have a point and I think a full blown remake is much more likely than a new entry and even that's a stretch

"you die hard fans would instantly hate it and slag it off no matter how good it was "

Are they still bitter about how Nuts & Bolts was received?

It might be a perfectly fine game, but it's not what the Banjo fanbase was looking for for the next entry.
Nuts & Bolts is the kind of game that works as a spinoff to accompany a mainline entry, but not so much as a mainline entry itself.
It's the whole Metroid Prime Federation Force problem - it may have been a good game, but you can't break a drought of games with a spinoff release, because fans have no idea whether the weirdo spinoff version is all we're gonna get. Or if the new style is now the new normal for the series or not.

And the whole reason they're fans in the first place is because they liked the original style of game. So if it comes across that you're trying to scrap the original style in favour of this weird new style, of course the fans aren't going to be too pleased about that.

@thenikdavies No it definitely didn't come out of nowhere. I went to a panel years ago with Grant where he shared his love for nuts and bolts and was saddened by fans reactions to it. makes sense he would feel the same with a potential sequel

Grant Kirkhope seems bitter that most of us did not enjoy Nuts and Bolts. If they made a Banjo game in the vein of the first two titles it would be much better received by its core fanbase. No one asked for Nuts and Bolts, if the creators had Mario’s face on it instead, Nuts and Bolts would have still been received poorly because the game was boring and the level design felt lazy at best. It felt like the team had no interest in creating a Banjo game, but were forced to use the IP by Microsoft.

Personally I feel it's worth giving new devs who were fans of the original games back then a chance at making a true sequel

It's not impossible, but I do agree on the point that it likely would not please a lot of the older fans.

@Matchers You say that but Yooka-Laylee happened and that was a very divisive game.

And Nuts and Bolts was a game the original Banjo team WANTED to make and were very enthusiastic about it. The cynical dialogue during the intro talking about how "nobody wants to play collectathons anymore" was not a jab at Microsoft, they themselves legit thought there wasn't a demographic for it among Xbox players.

I am 100% okay with Microsoft doing nothing with Banjo franchise.
What I'm not okay with is letting it collect dust and not selling it away.
There has been some resurgence of 3D platformers and collectatons.
Then again, the Banjo fans are now grown ups, with no time to play as much as before. There are no younger fans because there was no new game in the franchise since 2008.
The new entry would have to be a masterpiece, game of the year contender, to have a chance of making good sales.

I feel like that is absolutely true, unfortunately. Most of the fans are Nintendo users, but it’s owned by Microsoft, and the Xbox is more focused on action games like shooters, and I feel like on there that there isn’t really an audience for classic platformer games on the Xbox compared to the Switch. I would maybe expect a new Banjo game to also have a Switch release since Microsoft has been adapting the multi-platform approach for a few of their titles, and I think that would be the way to go if they’d want it to sell well since the Xbox usually has the least sales in terms of games.

If they were to make a new one, expectations with the quality and gameplay would be high since Nuts and Bolts wasn’t a true platformer and was rather a sandbox game where you build vehicles with significantly toned down platformer elements. It shocks me no one has tried to remake the N64 games (besides that remake Rare was making that was cancelled in favor of Nuts and Bolts) because I think that would be the way to go rather than a new entry since I think remakes would satisfy fans more, but I don’t know.

@PipeGuy64Bit thanks for commenting. That’s an interesting take. I remember preordering Nuts and Bolts and being extremely disappointed with it after they left Spiral Mountain. Its funny to think that the development team would think fans of the series who purchased the previous titles would be disappointed if Nuts and Bolts was a collectathon. It would be like if a new Zelda entry went away from puzzles.
Yooka-Laylee may have been criticized by fans, but that was made by an indie team, and people had too high of expectations from an inexperienced team. However, many of us saw passed its flaws and supported both titles. Yooka-Laylee was successful enough to get a remaster coming this year and a sequel is in development.

multiple sad guh-huhs emanate from nowhere

Sadly, I don't either. Microsoft has an iron grasp on Rare, and they're only gonna chase trends. Alas, poor Banjo & Kazooie, we hardly knew ye...

If even Grant Kirkhope has no hope, then there really is no hope

Microsoft completely squandered their purchase of Rare. Let most of the IPs die, or made terrible entries, like Perfect Dark Zero. Sad.

@Erigen The whole "Xbox doesn't have an audience that would care for a new Banjo Kazooie" argumment is dumb when they funded Psychonauts 2 and Ori and its sequel, and all their games are also released on PC and Gamepass day 1.

"Zero" chance? Nah. "F-Zero" chance.

With thr popularity of ASTRO-BOT over on PS5, I could see Microsoft bringing back a new entry to have a player in the third-person platforming space. Or, LUCKY'S TALE 2..... Remember SUPER LUCKY'S TALE???

@EVIL-C this isn't entirely true. They did let Rare make Viva Piñata after all.

@N00BiSH It's not a series I have played so I can't attest to it. True that It was well-received, but it just never looked appealing to me.

His bitterness is most likely because of the response to Yooka Laylee a game that was so incredibly faithful to Banjo that it exposed how much the game design itself of Banjo is as deep as a puddle with incredibly boring platforming, unfortunately despite that fans would reject a new Banjo that attempted to address this so it would be screwed either way.
@WhiteTrashGuy
That’s some 90s/00s games industry logic that Microsoft has stopped using for years and they have no reason to care to now.

@fenlix
They did fund Psychonauts 2, but then also released it simultaneously on Playstation and PC because they knew better than to make it an Xbox exclusive.

Ori was an entirely new game and critically-lauded game that garnered it much attention to the indie scene and the general audience for Xbox.

Banjo is an old series, that many Xbox users never got to experience because of the N64 roots. A collect-a-thon platformer that some now consider an out-of-date genre. Even Rare Replay had little to no impact on demand for a new game from the Xbox crowd.

The circumstances between all three games are different. Microsoft does have it's kidcentric/casual audience, but that doesn't mean Banjo is what they are after.

I kinda see his point here. Yooka-Laylee was a pretty faithful spiritual successor and was unfairly maligned IMO.

I think for Banjo-Kazooie to make a real comeback they'd have to do something big and innovative, which I don't quite trust Microsoft to do at this point.

Doesnt bother me. They would only ***** it up by trying something too ambitious or edgy and lose what made the origionals so great. Even playtonics Yooka-Laylee couldnt live up to two origional Banjo games and they were comprised of most of the origional team. Rare are Rare by name only at this point.

@Erigen spot on, MS has been in a terrible place for the last 10 years or so. And they don't really make games for Xbox anymore, since everything gets ported and sells a lot more on other platforms

He is entirely correct.

@Buizel Unfair nothing, Yooka Laylee is one of the most over hyped and underwhelming indie titles I have seen. It's the Mighty No. 9 of 3D platformers.

As far as Banjo Kazooie is concerned, they need to realize the franchise isn't as great as the nostalgic fans seem to think it is. Yeah the original was the pinnacle of 3D platformers, but Tooie doesn't hold up nearly as well. The various mini games and FPS segments felt innovative at the time but the game is a chore to play today.

And Nuts and Bolts sucks. People try to claim that was judged unfairly, but no. Even by its own standards, judged for what it is, it sucks bad. Navigating the world is a pain, the physics engine is a joke, soundtrack is underwhelming, and the dialogue borders on painful. Vehicle creation itself is the only part that's any fun, but 9 times out of 10 that fun dies the second you bring your creation into the game world.

Microsoft should go back to their original idea of a BK reboot that's self aware and changes up the occasional mission/story beat. Really no other direction to take it at this point.

I feel like the comment section proved his point, at least to a degree.

it's been almost two decades people need to stop Banjo Kazooie is not coming back, it is a dead franchise

@EarthboundBenjy ouch… if you change your comment to Zelda … it is exactly the same.

I think Grant forgets what the last Banjo-Kazooie game was. I think as long as the game is better than Nuts & Bolts and Yooka-Laylee, I'm fairly certain even the most diehard fans will be pleased.

Metroid fans "slagged off" Other M and Federation Force to no end, and then had nothing but praise for Metroid Dread. Fans want to be pleased. The "no matter how good it was" is clearly off base, but I can understand cynicism at Microsoft producing a good dev team for Banjo.

@Buizel Yooka had promise but ultimately it failed due to being too cautious with the source material as a slew of questionable design flaws throughout - flaws that even Playtonic recognized given their current efforts to remake the thing.

Grant Kirkhope is a worldly treasure and his unflinching commentary is always appreciated.

Just sell the rights back to Nintendo. Maybe then we can actually get a new game

I absolutely love Banjo-Kazooie, but the magic is gone, and recapturing it won’t work. Nuts and Bolts was already prove of that.

Screw the haters, Nuts and Bolts was a masterpiece!!!

It's always been astounding to me that Microsoft bought the Banjo IP to not make Banjo games.

I like how he threw the Banjo-Kazooie fanbase under the bus and then came back pretending to be their savior. As talented and no name as he was he needs to learn to keep his cool otherwise he soon would had little fanbase left. Yes perhap a new entry of Banjo-Kazooie would be hated no matter if it's good or garbage but even if that's true you can't throw the BK fanbase under the bus like that cause then you make the newer fanbase angry as well especially those who had only gotten into the franchise recently such as the NSO players.

While Nuts N Bolts and Grunty's Revenge didn't make a huge splash, at least those kept the bear and bear relevant at the time but the real disappointment the fanbase had with the BK franchise at this point was that there's literally nothing new from the franchise for over 16 years now. Those who were once a fan of the series had move on and those who recently became a fan had nothing to look forward to, fix those and maybe the fanbase may grow again.

@Bluerangervegeta Eh, I'm willing to meet you halfway here. I agree that B-K is overrated and doesn't hold up nearly as well as people will have you believe. But similarly I think Y-L isn't any worse than B-K and most of its strengths and flaws are aligned with those of B-K. I think it was unfairly maligned in the sense that I wouldn't have expected much more from a spiritual successor to B-K - I personally think it was very faithful but maybe that was its downfall.

If only there was a studio of Rare alumni who had a good understanding of both the franchise and its sense of British humour.

C'est la vie!

@liljmoore I doubt it, they own Donkey Kong but they seem not to know how to make a new 3D entry, as a matter of fact, they don't seem to know what to do with the franchise other than selling remasters at full price XD

@Erigen Psychonauts 2 was released on Playstation because the game was first funded on Kickstarter and they had to fullfil the promise of a playstation version. They later ended up making the next gen update exclusive for Xbox Series X/S.

I will admit, I 100% agree with what Grant Kirkhope said. Die hard fans will have their expectations unrealistically high due to todays standards. They been spoiled by modern day graphics, smoother FPS, and processing power, All while being heavily clouded by nostalgia. There may never be a way to please them with a new entry in this day and age. But even so, there is still a chance, there is still a window of opportunity to actually pull it off and give the series a good sequel, but is a bit of a stretch at this point unless the team creating it knows full well what they are doing and how to do it properly. My hopes is that we may someday get a new game, but my expectations is that we probably never will get a new game.

I managed to enjoy all the Banjo games (minus the GBA one, never played it). I'd be happy with whatever they come out with unless they make something completely unplayable, obviously. That doesn't mean they were all perfect. I have criticisms of every game in the series but overall they were enjoyable. Nothing is perfect.

@Erigen Couldn’t agree more, that is absolutely how any future installment should release