There is a new rumor going around that Banjo-Kazooie is finally, really, staging another comeback.
As shared by Idle Sloth on Twitter, insider NateDrake shared an update they revealed earlier about their being a Banjo-Kazooie game. NateDrake said:
“It’s still an active project, but it didn’t get the green light until early last year. There is a lot to do and development can change a lot (abandoned ideas, internal reboots, etc.)”
NateDrake shared this as an update to an earlier rumor about this game. After some digging around, we believe this rumor dates to June 2022. As shared by HappyGamer, this is what NateDrake said then:
“There is a new project for Banjo-Kazooie in development. We can only guess where and when it will be shown. But as far as I understand, Microsoft gave the green light to production only a few months ago. There was talk about the game at GDC.”
If NateDrake is to be believed, MicrosoftGaming was already talking about a new Banjo-Kazooie game in the middle of 2022. That project has pushed forward but only started development very recently, AKA, the end of 2023. So, Microsoft under Phil has been seriously considering making this game for some time now, but didn’t believe they could do it until very recently.
Now, Idle Sloth alluded to a quote from Phil Spencer in a recent interview. Let’s go back to the interview itself to figure out what it all means.
Phil Spencer was interviewed by Jez Corden for Windows Central just early last month. Phil talked at length about the company’s plans in bringing back old IP, as opposed to the recent announcements of brand new video game IP such as Avowed and South of Midnight. Here’s what Phil said:
“You’ve seen from our history that we haven’t touched every franchise that people would love us to touch — Banjo fans, I hear you. But it is true that, when we find the right team, and the right opportunity, I love going back to revisit stories and characters that we’ve seen previously.”
So was Phil teasing us here, or just talking in general? It certainly sounds like Phil found the “right team, and the right opportunity” to finally greenlight a new Banjo-Kazooie game.
It certainly sounds like one of those perplexing thing that will make sense when we finally know what Phil was talking about. Who is the right team, and more importantly, what is the right opportunity?
I’ll go ahead and post my speculation here. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy were made by Blizzard Albany (FKA Vicarious Visions) and Toys for Bob, respectively. Both were successful remakes, and both studios are fully owned by Microsoft, by virtue of being part of the Activision Blizzard deal.
So was Microsoft just biding their time to get Blizzard Albany and Toys For Bob to work on Banjo-Kazooie? And given their recent output, could they be making completely new games, or will they go the remake route with the three Banjo-Kazooie games that we already have?
Now it all sounds very interesting, doesn’t it? We certainly can’t wait to see if Microsoft will eventually announce this.
