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Will Rare release anything as impactful as Donkey Kong Country or Goldeneye 007 ever again?
- Thread starter daTRUballin
- Start date
Nope. I think the best people can hope for is Rare leasing their IP's to other studious (like killer instinct and battletoads) and seeing what pays off. I don't think Rare themselves have the talent or numbers to create something truly groundbreaking again.
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Yeah Sea LF Theives seems like a breakout hit so they're already back on top
S
Sea of Thieves will influence other games and that's all it has to do to have a larger impact than most games that came out this gen.
I mean, it's pretty much impossible to be as impactful as Goldeneye was. For any developer.
But they've made better games, like Viva Pinata, and games played by more people like Sea of Thieves (I can't comment on its quality since I haven't played it myself but I'm lead to believe it's rather good)
But they've made better games, like Viva Pinata, and games played by more people like Sea of Thieves (I can't comment on its quality since I haven't played it myself but I'm lead to believe it's rather good)
I think this is about right. Games don't have to be 'impactful' to be great.
The most cited games Rare made under Nintendo really saw them polish and iterate on some established genres. DKC was an iteration on the 2D platformer. Banjo and Conker were different spins on the 3D platformer. GoldenEye was an innovative FPS but not the first, and as has already been said, it was during a period the FPS genre in general was undergoing some quite rapid evolution.
The most 'out there' Rare games from that time - Blast Corps, Jet Force Gemini - were not their biggest hits.
Finally, and again as others have said, it's frankly just harder now to 'reinvent the wheel' than it used to be. That's a natural consequence of collective experience with new tech, and new ideas and genres accumulating over time.
Rare on N64 was a truly formative period for me as a gamer, and I don't think any of the above takes away from some wonderful games, and a very proud heritage. I also enjoyed my time with Sea of Thieves, and greatly look forward to Everwild. The studio has a history most developers would kill for.
But overblown statements don't help acknowledge these things, and I'd say can even distract attention away from celebrating from their very real contributions.
How can you say that when Sea of Thieves is still building its legacy? It will be years until we know the full scope of SoT's legacy
Are you saying that the only way for Rare to create groundbreaking games is or them to return to their old IPs?
You know that just like Viva Pinata, Kinect Sports and Sea of Thieves, Battletoads and Killer Instinct were new IPs at one point right? If Rare had stuck to only a select few IPs they never would have made the IPs mentioned (or DKC, Goldeneye or Banjo-Kazooie for that matter).
Because, despite sales numbers, I never heard anywhere near the buzz around this game (whether in person or on forums) as I did with DKC & Goldeneye at the time. So I don't see it rivaling those two games, even a couple of years down the line. But you're right that I could be wrong.
Voted yes based on Everwild fabulous trailer and faith they can pull off something magic and purely enchanting, based on harmony with the surrounding nature and not on murder and destructio
We shall see in a couple of years if this was vote was mere wishful thinking or not.
You mean the game that Rare haven't even fully conceptualised?
In my view, Rare have still released interesting games like Viva piñata and Nuts and Bolts (yes, I REALLY liked nuts and bolts) but they haven't released anything groundbreaking since the 64.
I think Sea of Thieves is extremely pretty trash and hated every moment I played of it:
More people have heard of and enjoyed Sea of Thieves than DKC or Goldeneye (the game) by a long way. It is easily Rare's biggest and most impactful game.
Games are so much bigger today than they were in the 90s. Get out of your bubble. Take off your nostalgia goggles.
More people have heard of and enjoyed Sea of Thieves than DKC or Goldeneye (the game) by a long way. It is easily Rare's biggest and most impactful game.
Games are so much bigger today than they were in the 90s. Get out of your bubble. Take off your nostalgia goggles.
It's my favorite video game trailer I've seen in a long time so I predict it's going to be really good lol the recent one
I can see Sea of Thieves being easily as impactful as GoldenEye 007 was. Just like GoldenEye's 4-player splitscreen became a blueprint for console first-person-shooters I think Sea of Thieves' freeform play framework will be a blueprint for many future titles. It's really state-of-the-art in that area.
I played them when they all came out. You seem to be quite young with how you're acting, maybe you need to a grow up a bit.
OP
OP
Because it's not 2013 anymore.
You're forgetting about the mindblowing pre-rendered graphics for their time. It was probably the biggest reason why DKC was such a phenomenon back then. But the DK IP being revived is a good point. It's crazy to think that the DK that we all know and love is who he is today because of Rare.
Until we hear some hard numbers or hear anything else from Rare or MS, SoT is NOT the best selling Rare game. 15 million people have played the game. It didn't sell 15 million copies. There's a difference. As of now, the original DKC is Rare's best selling game at 9 million copies sold. Has SoT reached 9 million yet? Probably not.
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Goldeneye? No. That's just a perfect storm game where a dev is right on the pulse, with something zeitgeist defining.
It's like asking if Mojang will ever create something as impactful as Minecraft again. You're lucky if you get 1 in a career.
Donkey Kong Country level though? I don't see why not. DKC is an 'ok' platformer we wrapped in trendy graphics and an excellent soundtrack. It was a good game, but at its core a success of marketing, and being pushed effectively as a core piece of Nintendo's lineup
No reason why with the right nostalgia IP, and proper budget/marketing from Msoft that they couldn't do it again
It's like asking if Mojang will ever create something as impactful as Minecraft again. You're lucky if you get 1 in a career.
Donkey Kong Country level though? I don't see why not. DKC is an 'ok' platformer we wrapped in trendy graphics and an excellent soundtrack. It was a good game, but at its core a success of marketing, and being pushed effectively as a core piece of Nintendo's lineup
No reason why with the right nostalgia IP, and proper budget/marketing from Msoft that they couldn't do it again
lol
You forgot the /s
On topic: imo they already have, with SoT.
I'm a huuuge fan of GoldenEye, I spent countless hours playing SP and MP back in the days. It was truly revolutionary.
Now if I consider a) today's gaming landscape which is totally different from 1997, and b) the nostalgia goggles, Sea of Thieves is imo as impactful and revolutionary as the two games mentioned in the OP.
Also I have a good feeling about Everwild, but it's obviously (much) too soon to tell.
Not for those who played these games near release.
GoldenEye was fucking revolutionary in the console space.
DKC series is arguably less so, but still largely masterpiece material.
If they hit those heights again, they would be extremely fortunate.
GoldenEye was fucking revolutionary in the console space.
DKC series is arguably less so, but still largely masterpiece material.
If they hit those heights again, they would be extremely fortunate.
Nah. I'm a Rare fanboy. I have a literal Rare collection. I've tracked down and bought mint, boxed, Japanese versions of every one of their N64 releases. I bought DKC and Goldeneye day one.
And Sea of Thieves is still my favourite game of this whole generation. If being my personal game of the gen isn't high heights then I don't know of any other dev that could it either.
My point being - thinking one way or another isn't anything to do with 'being there at the time' or age or anything. Taste? Yeah, maybe.
I said earlier in the thread that I don't think they can make something as impactful as Goldeneye again. I don't think many studios could. As you said, it was revolutionary. DKC though? It was a very very good platformer on a system chock full of some of the best platformers ever made. I think they've made more impactful games since then, yeah. I think Sea of Thieves, for an easy example, has been hugely impactful for a lot of players who've found a social experience that is challenging and equally co-operative and competitive without being 'sweaty' or based around mass violence (outside of cartoony explosions and swords). It's my WoW. I've found a huge social circle around the game spanning the globe. Friends who I'd definitely travel to another country to visit if given the chance. It's very special.
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Goldeneye was a truly revolutionary multiplayer experience on consoles. It was also a cultural phenomenon. Asking if someone wanted to play "Bond" was universally understood for anyone ages 8 to 22. I remember reading EGM and it was always charting on the sales pages. It sold better than MGS, RE2, Tomb Raider 2, Tony Hawk 2 - shit - it outsold OoT.
So, no - Rare will never do that again. Ever.
So, no - Rare will never do that again. Ever.
Exactly. On some level the bar is just too high to have the impact of GoldenEye or DKC both cause of the time and place they existed and just rare itself. As technology improves and we have so many games anything having that kind of splash by anybody is super hard
Also the rare today isn't the same rare.
Interesting takes. Let's set aside sales for a second. Rare games have continued to be influential, even if not necessarily recognized at the time.
- Nuts and Bolts with user-generated content to solve emergent situations / sandbox puzzles before it became a genre.
- Viva Pinata were very ahead of much of the industry (especially mobile now) with a unique approach to an existing genre
- Kinect Sports Rivals absolutely took new technology and did some really cool things with it, even if not as culturally significant as wii sports
Have any of these been as influential as their counterparts or earlier Rare Games? No likely not, but I push back on the assertion that these games were not significant or didn't leave an impact on the industry. They don't play well in list wars, but they're unjustly dismissed.
And I want to deep dive into SOT's impact on gaming and why it's so influential, and yet exists in such a blind spot for so many hardcore gamers who can't fathom why so many players of all ages and experiences love it. And that's because SOT is an anomaly. It's a game that's not built around gamification - or at least not built around character progression, but around telling stories. Winning a game is never the focus of Sea of Thieves - and that sets it apart from not only traditional and single player games, but even other MP GAAS titles. Remember the relationship of the two elements: Player Stories over Player Progression.
The premise of Sea of Thieves is players making stories together. And that's not a new concept. That's also the premise of something like tabletop D&D. D&D isn't fun because the setting and stat blocks are inherently so engaging (though good writing is always appreciated), rather it's about how those things enable fun/engaging collaborative storytelling with friends. The rules and trappings of D&D are just there to enable you to create the stories that you want to make. And that's why almost(?) every single D&D video game doesn't quite capture the joy of actually playing D&D. Many D&D video games do a pretty good job in bringing D&D mechanics to a story that they're telling. There may even be player choice and agency, along with a huge array of options and stories to explore, sure. But fundamentally, D&D video games are not built to the same ends as D&D actually is. They have to supply the content that we the players then explore. That's very cool (looking forward to BG3), but it's not what makes D&D fun at its core.
That's where SOT comes in. Why can my friends that play no games whatsoever pick up and enjoy SOT? Why can little kids enjoy it just as much as a Summit can? More than that, why can some of the best moments happen when a video game pro and a little kid metaphorically collide in that game space? Because even though the video game thing to do (and still the most common outcome) is attacking the other ship and trying to sink them, interactions in SOT are free to run the whole gamut of options. They could fight, or stare at each other, or jump over and sing songs and decide to go on a quest together. If you enjoy sinking ships, there's certainly a space for that. If you want to RP, there's plenty of ways to do that. If you just want to relax and talk to other people after a long day, you can chill out on missions and do that. If you want to have fun and cause chaos, the sandbox of tools to do that with is ever expanding.
I hope that this becomes the enduring legacy of SOT. That games don't have to tell you everything or give you all the pieces for you to assemble perfectly. (And not just opening up a MP sandbox, like Minecraft, Roblox, even NMS.) Player Stories over Player Progression. If a standard D&D campaign with levels and an ongoing story is like an EVE (an AMAZING game for creating stories that DO account for character and world progression), then SOT is like a series of D&D One Shots. It aims for that core bit of fun, but it does it by taking away your session progress every time. Which can be super frustrating, especially to those of us trained to think in "video game" - and yet, is also a brilliant design decision for a game that is all about helping players create their own unique stories.
- Nuts and Bolts with user-generated content to solve emergent situations / sandbox puzzles before it became a genre.
- Viva Pinata were very ahead of much of the industry (especially mobile now) with a unique approach to an existing genre
- Kinect Sports Rivals absolutely took new technology and did some really cool things with it, even if not as culturally significant as wii sports
Have any of these been as influential as their counterparts or earlier Rare Games? No likely not, but I push back on the assertion that these games were not significant or didn't leave an impact on the industry. They don't play well in list wars, but they're unjustly dismissed.
And I want to deep dive into SOT's impact on gaming and why it's so influential, and yet exists in such a blind spot for so many hardcore gamers who can't fathom why so many players of all ages and experiences love it. And that's because SOT is an anomaly. It's a game that's not built around gamification - or at least not built around character progression, but around telling stories. Winning a game is never the focus of Sea of Thieves - and that sets it apart from not only traditional and single player games, but even other MP GAAS titles. Remember the relationship of the two elements: Player Stories over Player Progression.
The premise of Sea of Thieves is players making stories together. And that's not a new concept. That's also the premise of something like tabletop D&D. D&D isn't fun because the setting and stat blocks are inherently so engaging (though good writing is always appreciated), rather it's about how those things enable fun/engaging collaborative storytelling with friends. The rules and trappings of D&D are just there to enable you to create the stories that you want to make. And that's why almost(?) every single D&D video game doesn't quite capture the joy of actually playing D&D. Many D&D video games do a pretty good job in bringing D&D mechanics to a story that they're telling. There may even be player choice and agency, along with a huge array of options and stories to explore, sure. But fundamentally, D&D video games are not built to the same ends as D&D actually is. They have to supply the content that we the players then explore. That's very cool (looking forward to BG3), but it's not what makes D&D fun at its core.
That's where SOT comes in. Why can my friends that play no games whatsoever pick up and enjoy SOT? Why can little kids enjoy it just as much as a Summit can? More than that, why can some of the best moments happen when a video game pro and a little kid metaphorically collide in that game space? Because even though the video game thing to do (and still the most common outcome) is attacking the other ship and trying to sink them, interactions in SOT are free to run the whole gamut of options. They could fight, or stare at each other, or jump over and sing songs and decide to go on a quest together. If you enjoy sinking ships, there's certainly a space for that. If you want to RP, there's plenty of ways to do that. If you just want to relax and talk to other people after a long day, you can chill out on missions and do that. If you want to have fun and cause chaos, the sandbox of tools to do that with is ever expanding.
I hope that this becomes the enduring legacy of SOT. That games don't have to tell you everything or give you all the pieces for you to assemble perfectly. (And not just opening up a MP sandbox, like Minecraft, Roblox, even NMS.) Player Stories over Player Progression. If a standard D&D campaign with levels and an ongoing story is like an EVE (an AMAZING game for creating stories that DO account for character and world progression), then SOT is like a series of D&D One Shots. It aims for that core bit of fun, but it does it by taking away your session progress every time. Which can be super frustrating, especially to those of us trained to think in "video game" - and yet, is also a brilliant design decision for a game that is all about helping players create their own unique stories.
I'm fine with Rare becoming again a studio that releases interesting games, it's out of their control whether or not they are influential anyway. SoT wasn't for me, but I haven't been turned off by anything they've showcased in Everwild so far. They are in a infinitely better state than the Kinect years or whatever is going on in Retro Studios the past 7 years.
They will continue making great games but you won't see another game that impacts things the way goldeneye did. If you played it when it came out you KNEW it was a game changer.
OP
OP
The whole "Retro is the new Rare" rhetoric a lot of people used to run with is getting funnier and funnier with each passing year because of this.
But also a little sad. :(
The simpler way to put it is that SoT is a game about the journey, not the destination.
People cite the monotony of the tasks, failing to grasp that these are not the objective: they're an excuse to make you head out to sea to find the unscripted fun that's there. No one else quite does this like SoT in video games, yet. But many will.
Sea of Thieves has already been just as impactful as Banjo Kazooie, at the very least. Maybe not GoldenEye because that was such a cultural phenomenon.
I don't think we should hold Rare to the standards of the 90's. What they've achieved with Sea of Thieves is phenomenal.
No, but the Rockstar Games that made Red Dead Redemption isn't the same Rockstar Games that made Red Dead Redemption II, either. The Nintendo that made Breath of the Wild isn't the same Nintendo that made Skyward Sword. The 343 thats making Halo Infinite isn't the 343 that made Halo 4.
Devs always come and go but it's fun & relevant to compare past titles from the same studio, even if it's a very different studio today. Studios tend to carry a certain culture, and expectation, even as hundreds or thousands of staff come and go.
Well put. Let's add Metriod Prime Devs too, who have long since left Retro.
Most studios never release a single genre defining all timer lol. They can exist forever as a very fine top notch studio even if they never capture the zeitgeist like Goldeneye again. I mean it is 25 years later, they were once the young blood and they aren't really anymore.
Sea of thieves was the biggest piece of shit chat Room non game I have ever played. pretty impactful on me really.
Why would that stop them?
There are loads of GAAS games that have been highly influential and/or well regarded in recent years.
I just think it's a different kind of impact. One hits hard and immediate whereas the other is kind of a long burn, and SoT still has a lot of life in it so we haven't seen it's full potential yet.
Its hilarious to me that people claiming to be big fans of Rare from "back in the day" claim that there's no one from their golden era still working there, and that they should be making games based on their old IPs.
This is ignoring the fact that Sea of Thieves was lead by Gregg Mayles and Everwild is lead by Louise O'Connor. Two veterans from Rare.
Tweets and interviews from Gregg Mayles show that he wants to work on new projects -- not just do Banjo forever. Banjo-Kazooie is one of my favourite games of all time, but I can't blame him. Why would you want to work on the same property for decades? Creative people strive to do new things.
Sea of Thieves may not be the game people who were begging for a new Banjo wanted, but it's undeniably got the Rare charm to it. Pirates have been referenced in a ton of Rare games.
Rare was the reason I initially became interested in Microsoft's platforms. I've loved their games since the N64. If their new games don't click with you, that's fine. But I can't help but feel there's too many people who will never be happy with what the company produces because it's not the Nintendo-Rare production from their childhood.
This is ignoring the fact that Sea of Thieves was lead by Gregg Mayles and Everwild is lead by Louise O'Connor. Two veterans from Rare.
Tweets and interviews from Gregg Mayles show that he wants to work on new projects -- not just do Banjo forever. Banjo-Kazooie is one of my favourite games of all time, but I can't blame him. Why would you want to work on the same property for decades? Creative people strive to do new things.
Sea of Thieves may not be the game people who were begging for a new Banjo wanted, but it's undeniably got the Rare charm to it. Pirates have been referenced in a ton of Rare games.
Rare was the reason I initially became interested in Microsoft's platforms. I've loved their games since the N64. If their new games don't click with you, that's fine. But I can't help but feel there's too many people who will never be happy with what the company produces because it's not the Nintendo-Rare production from their childhood.
I never said they would release another game with a big impact if the originals were still there. I'm just saying what made Rare was whoever was that specific team at the time.
A handful of people doesn't make an entire team. The name Rare might be there but it isn't the same team.
Gaming was smaller back then, it's not a fair comparison. Plus no one will remember sea of thieves a decade from now and I bet goldeneye will be. It also rated piss poor in metacritic.
I'm referring to people who think there is no body left from the original days. Just look at the first page of this thread.
Its to be expected that people will move on from companies -- especially ones that have been around as long as Rare. Its never going to be the exact same team of people (especially given the size of modern AAA games compared to the small size of people who worked on DKC), but as long as they're passionate about the projects they're making, does it matter?
OP
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Wow. Did not expect someone to be banned for console warring in this thread. Looks like some people can't handle any appreciation for modern Rare, I guess.
Do you honestly think that?
Stop making sense. We all know that anyone hired on or after September 24th, 2002 is untalented by default.
Do you honestly think that?
Stop making sense. We all know that anyone hired on or after September 24th, 2002 is untalented by default.