Only The Good Die Young
An underwater creature, a medieval squirrel and humanoid frogs... all gone
Rare titles are a special commodity. Yet for every stellar title they’ve had, there are always those titles that never came to be. Let’s trace back to a few days ago. 1Up had an article of an event that happened in Sweden, where artworks of two unreleased titles were shown by the incredibly talented artist and Senior Concept Artist at Rare, Ryan Firchau. As you can see, they were varied between super soldiers, werewolves, and a really creepy scholarly man. That was that, right? Our speculation ran abound, never to know what they were going to be, let alone called.
It got better. And worse. At the same time. Yes.
Ryan Firchou had a site where his portfolio of games that he worked on was seen. I say “had” because just like Feargal Plant’s site with the videos of the beta version of Perfect Dark Zero, the site is down as of this moment. What was interesting was that alongside the games he had developed on, there were some games we never knew existed for sure, alongside the name of the game with the werewolf and the scholarly creep. The latter’s game was called “Urchin.”
As for the other unreleased titles, they were Battletoads, Diddy Kong Pilot (one Rare fans might be familiar with), and Conker 2: Getting Medieval. We know about Diddy Kong Pilot’s fate, so that one isn’t such a spectacular revelation. What is, however, are the two other games we’ve never heard of officially until now. For all the demands of a Battletoads game now, it’s amazing to know that at one point it was in development. And based on the subtitle for the sequel to Conker that we unfortunately never got, it may have very well been a “Kill Bill” style of plot where Conker gets revenge for the loss of Berri at the end of Bad Fur Day.
This is just a theory in itself, but from the way the games were listed, Battletoads may have been the first casualty, being canceled as early as possibly 2000 and as late as 2002, depending on whether or not that year was the time that Diddy Kong Pilot was retooled to Banjo-Pilot.
Back when Raretopia was in its prime, a rumour arose that in 2002, the Bad Fur Day team was already working on the sequel to the game, but it was put on hold. Furthermore, we know that Microsoft requested a Conker game which ended up being Live & Uncut before becoming Live & Reloaded. Because of this and the additional possibility that development may have started on Getting Medieval shortly after Live & Reloaded’s release, there’s no accurate place to know when Getting Medieval was started and cancelled, let alone knowing that Getting Medieval may have been the original concept put on hold six years ago.
As for Urchin, this is a lot easier to place if we use the “timeline scheme” of the site. It could’ve either been a late Xbox game that never made the transition to the 360 due to other projects or even the imminent release of the 360 itself so soon in the console war, or a canceled 360 game due to the possible priorities of the current disc formatted games we have now for the console.
Regardless, these are losses that are quite big to the fanbase, especially Battletoads die-hards and those that experienced the joy of Bad Fur Day/Live & Reloaded and have been longing for a sequel for years. Too bad Seavor is sick of the franchise to the point that we might never see the sequel that could’ve been.
You may now go up to the caskets and say your final prayers, and enjoy the art of Urchin and other games that MundoRare has preserved in its memory.
Ryan Firchau artwork:
Somehow related news
- Bill Gates: “Viva Piñata is for young girls” ()
- Players yearn for more Conker and welcome back the Piñatas ()
- Sabreman Stampede and Battletoads GBA footage gets leaked! ()
- Fans still prefer Banjo’s original look ()
- Banjo-Kazooie 3 info avalanche for Christmas ()
5 Comments
I’ll Tell You Why.’Cause they don’t like a Sequel Conker, In fact, They don’t even like Conker anymore, They just don’t like to make good games just like the good old days. All because of Mirosoft. They want rare to be more Mirosoftish instead of nintendoish. Im startin’ to think that rare don’t give a fuck about the olds days anymore. There won’t be another conker anymore. And guess what, HunterM33, Their not remaking a banjo game. I hate mirosoft so much I wanna fuck them up. FUCK YOU, MIROSOFT! LEAVE RARE ALONE!!
Comment by Bobby Barnes — 28.May.08 @ 2:51 am I’ll Tell You Why.’Cause they don’t like a Sequel Conker, In fact, They don’t even like Conker anymore, They just don’t like to make good games just like the good old days. All because of Mirosoft. They want rare to be more Mirosoftish instead of nintendoish. Im startin’ to think that rare don’t give a fuck about the olds days anymore. There won’t be another conker anymore. And guess what, HunterM33, They’re not remaking a banjo game. I hate mirosoft so much I wanna fuck them up. FUCK YOU, MIROSOFT! LEAVE RARE ALONE!!
Comment by Bobby Barnes — 28.May.08 @ 2:52 am
Dude! rare make a fucking game every 10 years and when they do something is .. bullshit and is true now! i was thinking that banjo 3 can be a great game but. is a RACE GAME!!! is not an adventure game if rare do better things… i wish i now what the hell rare have in the head.
Comment by Mc Grady — 19.Jul.08 @ 5:56 am
You know why Rare doesn’t make constant sequels to their games? Because if they did, then their games would get stale like Bungie’s Halo with slightly better graphics and the same gameplay. And if they were to do that, then you would start bitching about the need of something new. But when they do something new and creative like Nuts & Bolts, you just go insane. Besides, have you even played Nuts & Bolts,
have you even played Viva Pinata? Have you even played any of Rare’s 360 games? Because if you have then you wouldn’t be writing bullshit like you just did. Now settle down, and for the love of god, shut up and if you don’t like Rare any more then maybe you shouldn’t be commenting on a Rare fansite, because you clearly aren’t a fan.
why, why, why the sequel of conker. It could be fun a new saga of rare and the reborn of an old saga(battletoads)… BUT WHY THE SEQUEL OF CONKER¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡
Comment by HunterM33 — 22.May.08 @ 9:25 pm