Rare history

1982 was a major year in videogame development.

So it was quite a shock to the system when, in 1985, the Stampers sold the Ultimate brand to British game publisher United States Gold, and abandoned the Spectrum platform.

By 1991, as the brothers often predicted to deaf ears, Nintendo had conquered Japan and North America.

Rare released three Battletoads games in 1993, including Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team, Battletoads in Ragnarok's World and Battletoads in Battlemaniacs.

Their company was renamed Rareware, and Donkey Kong Country launched in late November, 1994.

Killer Instinct was set to be released for Nintendo's own 64-bit system, the Nintendo 64 in 1995, but was forced to release the game for the 16-bit SNES system, and had to downgrade the game's graphics.

The first public defection happened in 1997, when a group of employees marched out en masse to form Eighth Wonder, a studio dedicated to developing for Sony.

Banjo-Kazooie was released in June 1998 to critical acclaim.

In 1999, Nintendo signed an agreement with Disney, and assigned Rare to develop several racing and adventure games featuring Mickey Mouse.

As early as 2000, Microsoft began making overtures to have the Stampers come make games for their still-under-wraps console.

On March 4, 2001, they found out different.

In September 2002, the same month Star Fox Adventures hit stores, they made it official.

In August 2003, Rare and Microsoft entered an agreement with THQ for Rare to publish games for the Game Boy Advance, including Sabre Wulf, a game based on an Ultimate character; Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, initially intended as a Game Boy Color game and It's Mr.

At E3 2004, Microsoft's Ken Lobb said that Rare had obtained Nintendo DS development kits and was working on two games for the Nintendo DS. Shortly afterwards, Microsoft issued a statement that the company and its studios had no plans for Nintendo DS development.

But when 2005 rolled around, Microsoft put Rare at the forefront of their launch title lineup for the Xbox 360.

In 2006, the company released Viva Piñata, a game involving gardening.

Just a few months later, on January 2, 2007, Tim and Chris Stamper announced they were leaving the company they'd founded twenty-five years earlier.

Rare unveiled work on Xbox Live avatars, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise (the next game in the Viva Piñata series), and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts in 2008.

In March 2010, Rare opened a new facility at Fazeley Studios in Digbeth, Birmingham.

In March 2011, Scott Henson announced that Craig Duncan, who had worked on Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and the Colin McRae Rally series, was hired as senior studio director.

Simon Woodroffe, who had worked at several studios (including Adventure Soft, Midway Games, Ubisoft, and Sega), became the studio's creative director in April 2012.

A Rare property, Killer Instinct, was revived in 2013.

Rare released Kinect Sports Rivals in 2014.

At E3 2015, a new compilation game, Rare Replay celebrating the studio's 30th anniversary, was introduced; it was released in August.

The game was worked on by 150 staff members and a new game engine was developed for it. It was delayed at the following year's conference and was released on 20 March 2018.

Microsoft and Rare also collaborated with Nintendo in 2019 to add Banjo & Kazooie as playable characters in the crossover Nintendo Switch fighting game Super Smash Bros.