First Rare XBLA title to debut this year
Comments from a Rare veteran to Edge magazine hints to a new IP
There are rumours afoot that Rare is developing a shiny new Xbox Live Arcade game. An article in the latest edition of Edge magazine features a quote from a Rare employee that suggests Rare is preparing to apply its talents to Live Arcade. Importantly, it seems the game will be an entirely new IP.
Nick Burton – who was recently credited as a software engineer for Kameo: Elements of Power and is an 8 year veteran of Rare – revealed that Rare is hard at work on a Live Arcade title to be released sometime in 2007. According to Burton, a team of around 10 people is working on the game, and while he was reluctant to reveal further details, he commented that it had retained Rare’s distinctive style: “It just feels like a Rare game. I don’t know what that means exactly, but it just does.”
This news comes as no surprise, considering the interest Rare has expressed in the past about tackling Live Arcade development. In the February 2006 edition of Scribes, Gregg Mayles – recently promoted to Creative Director at Rare – discussed the likelihood of Rare games appearing on Live Arcade. While he was excited at the prospect, labelling Live Arcade “a new innovative medium”, Mayles was quick to quash speculation that Rare would add its lengthy back catalogue of games to Live Arcade, explaining that many of Rare’s past titles would be unsuitable for the medium: “Battletoads is probably one, as it featured an almost inhuman difficulty level that many of today’s players would not appreciate, let alone handle.”
Instead, Mayles believed that Live Arcade should be utilised by developers to showcase games that take advantages of the format’s strengths, rather than as a place for developers to dump past classics for a quick buck: “At Rare we always look back fondly, but if you look back too much you stagnate.”
MundoRare will keep a close eye on any further news surrounding Rare’s Live Arcade title.
related news
- Jetpac to be finally released on XBLA? ()
- GoldenEye 007 XBLA remains cancelled ()
- Microsoft willing to launch GoldenEye XBLA ()
- GoldenEye 007 is NOT getting reincarnated on a different game ()
- New Rare deliberations on XBLA and VC titles come from Scribes ()
Our readers say...
post your comment
Get an avatar for your comments here. It'll also work on hundreds of blogs & websites.
By MundoRare | Jetpac to be finally released on XBLA?
[…] this guy, called Nick Burton, who ironically ended up being a worker at Rare, saying that there was something on the works for Xbox Live Arcade. Something that “felt like a Rare game.” There have never been many clues about what in the […]