Rare characters ready for new third party crossovers
Mark Betteridge: "It makes sense to keep our characters in the public eye"
Cameos and crossovers are relatively common in the gaming world, and developers use them as a regular basis nowadays. From Soul Calibur 4 having Darth Vader and Yoda as guest stars to Mario teaming up with Sonic for some Olympic Winter Games, all can be perpetrated to scratch some extra sales from each system’s most hardcore followers. But, Donkey Kong aside, Rare wasn’t very active in this area beyond their own lovely poligamic references, until just recently it was announced that Banjo and Kazooie will appear in Sega’s new racing title.
But now, according to CVG, we’ve known that “Rare is considering allowing more publishers to use its characters in third-party games.” Well, frankly, eight years after Rare’s buyout by Microsoft, it was about time to promote their IPs this way…!
Rare’s Senior Director, Mark Betteridge, told CVG that “the feedback on Banjo appearing in All-Stars Racing has been great, so as long as we choose carefully we’re happy to give players extra opportunities to take control of Rare characters.”
Betteridge adds that “it makes sense to keep our characters in the public eye and in players’ awareness,” and All-Stars Racing’s “opportunity was one we couldn’t pass up – not only did it allow Banjo and Kazooie to appear as they’ve most recently been seen in a Nuts & Bolts-style vehicle, but we’d be entrusting them to a well-known publisher with its own compatible stable of characters.” So, according to him, we can expect more third party games to adopt Rare mascots in the future “as long as” they feel it is “beneficial to the franchise.”
So, what would be next? Fans all over the world have already been bombing Rare’s Twitter with dozens of amazing ideas: Gruntilda in Bayonetta, Jetman in Mass Effect, Orchid in Ninja Gaiden, Mr. Pants playable in Halo and even the more splendid crazyness of a Perfect Dark/Guitar Hero crossover. Personally, nothing like Conker in Left 4 Dead or Tiptup in Bioshock 2.
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4 Comments
So I’m guessing Conker might cameo in Madworld 2?
Comment by Andrew gothicson — 20.Jan.10 @ 12:58 am
it would be cool Conker to be playable in halo 3 with its armor like master chief
Comment by Banjo the honey bear — 13.Jul.10 @ 4:57 am or should i say halo reach
Comment by Banjo the honey bear — 13.Jul.10 @ 4:58 am
sounds good to me! who knows what rares up too, but if their not going to make sequels to conker or banjo or any of the others, itll still be great to be able to play as them in something else at least
Comment by billy — 19.Jan.10 @ 1:18 am