Founding (1985–1993) Rare evolved from the company
Ultimate Play the Game, which was founded in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch,
Leicestershire by former
arcade game developers
Tim and Chris Stamper. After multiple critically and commercially successful releases including
Jetpac,
Atic Atac,
Sabre Wulf, and
Knight Lore, Ultimate Play The Game was one of the biggest UK-based video game development companies. The
ZX Spectrum home computer, the platform the company usually developed games for, was only popular in the UK, and they believed that working on that platform would not be beneficial to the company's growth as they considered it a "dead end". Meanwhile, the company inspected an imported console from Japan,
Nintendo's
Famicom, and believed that it would be an ideal future platform of choice for the company as it was more sophisticated than the Spectrum, it had a worldwide market, and its cartridges had no load times. As a result, Rare was established in 1985. Its main goal was to
reverse-engineer the console and investigate the codes for Famicom's games to learn more about the console's programming. The Famicom was eventually released in North America and Europe under the name
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The company then worked with various gaming publishers that included
Tradewest,
Acclaim Entertainment,
Electronic Arts,
Sega,
Mindscape, and
Gametek Rare also developed
Battletoads, a
beat'em up inspired by the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Several
Battletoads games were also ported to some
Sega's systems like the
Mega Drive/Genesis. Rare eventually acquired Zippo Games and renamed them to Rare Manchester. The huge library of games made large profits, but none became a critical success for the company while less creativity and innovation were shown in them. As the SNES at that time could not render all of the SGI graphics at once, Rare used the SGI graphics to produce 3D models and graphics, before pre-rendering these graphics onto the cartridge of the SNES system, During this period, Rare started selling their games under the
trademark name "Rareware". The company was considered one of Nintendo's key developers and had enough recognition that Nintendo offered Rare the Nintendo catalogue of characters to create a 3D
CGI game. Rare staff also visited
Twycross Zoo, observing and videotaping real gorillas. The game was a critical success, with critics praising the game's highly advanced visuals and artstyle.
Killer Instinct Gold, the console version of
Killer Instinct 2, suffered from a graphical downgrade due to the compression technology used to fit the arcade version onto the smaller Nintendo 64 cartridge. At that time, Rare was split into several teams, working on different projects. A large-scaled platformer was set to be released afterwards but was delayed. As a result, Rare changed their schedule and released their smaller projects first. The first project was
GoldenEye 007, a game based on the
James Bond film
GoldenEye. The project was led by
Martin Hollis and development was conducted by an inexperienced team. Inspired by
Sega's
Virtua Cop,
Goldeneye 007 had originally been an
on-rails shooter before the team decided to expand the gameplay and turn it into a free-roaming
first-person shooter. New elements, such as
stealth,
headshot mechanics and
reloading, were introduced. A
split-screen multiplayer was added to the game by the end of its development.
GoldenEye 007 was the first console
first-person shooter developed by Rare and it was released two years after the release of the film. The game received critical praise and received numerous awards.
Goldeneye 007 remained one of the best-selling games for two years, and sold more than eight million units worldwide. The protagonist was then replaced by a bear known as Banjo, and Rare expanded the role of
Kazooie the bird. The two characters were inspired by characters from
Disney films and Rare hoped that they could appeal to a younger audience.
Banjo-Kazooie was released in June 1998 to critical acclaim. A sequel,
Banjo-Tooie, was released in 2000. Upon the completion of
Banjo-Kazooies development, Hollis immediately began another project. Originally set to be a tie-in for
Tomorrow Never Dies, Rare was significantly outbid by another publisher, forcing Rare to develop a new concept with new characters. With a major emphasis on lighting, the game was named
Perfect Dark. Hollis left Rare for Nintendo 14 months after the start of
Perfect Darks development. Around the same time, numerous employees left the company and formed new studios. With major project leads departing, a new team took over its development and diminished the role of lighting in the game, making it a more straightforward first-person shooter. The game's troubled development did not affect the progress of Rare's other teams. When
Perfect Dark was still in development, Rare released two other games,
Jet Force Gemini and
Donkey Kong 64. In 1999, Nintendo signed an agreement with
Disney, and assigned Rare to develop several racing and adventure games featuring
Mickey Mouse. The project later became ''
Mickey's Speedway USA and Mickey's Racing Adventure''. Conker the Squirrel also had his own game, originally named ''Conker's Quest
. It was later renamed Twelve Tales: Conker 64
; however, the new game was criticized for being too family-friendly and its similar gameplay to Banjo-Kazooie
. As a result, the team renamed the game Conker's Bad Fur Day and it was re-revealed in 2000. Conker's Bad Fur Day
, unlike Banjo-Kazooie
, was intended for a mature audience, and features violence, profanity and scatological humour. However, Nintendo Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto suggested the team redesign the game as part of the Star Fox'' series for Nintendo's new console, the
GameCube. Unlike previous
Star Fox games,
Star Fox Adventures focuses on ground-based,
open world exploration. The game received positive reviews upon its launch in 2002. and Nintendo did not provide Rare with more capital nor did they purchase the company's remaining stake. The Stampers were surprised that Nintendo did not directly acquire the studio. Rare looked for potential buyers. In early 2000, workers from
Activision and
Microsoft began visiting Rare with purchase offers. According to Microsoft's
Ed Fries, Nintendo, Activision, and Microsoft then became embroiled in a
bidding war for ownership of Rare. Rare expressed interest in Activision's offer, but Microsoft offered more money. On 24 September 2002, Microsoft purchased Rare for $375 million (~$ in ). Rare became a
first-party developer for Microsoft's
Xbox. Character trademarks from games developed by Rare for Nintendo consoles, such as Conker of ''
Conker's Bad Fur Day and Banjo of the Banjo-Kazooie series, were retained by Rare; intellectual property created by Nintendo, such as Donkey Kong and Star Fox, were retained by Nintendo. This left Donkey Kong Racing'', due for release for the GameCube, unreleased. 30 employees left Rare during the transition. In August 2003, Rare and Microsoft entered an agreement with
THQ for THQ to publish Rare's 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. Pants!, a puzzle game originally developed as Donkey Kong: Coconut Crackers
. January 2005 saw the completion of this deal with the release of Banjo-Pilot, known as Diddy Kong Pilot'' before the Microsoft acquisition. In 2003, Rare released their first Microsoft game,
Grabbed by the Ghoulies, a humorous action-adventure game set in a haunted mansion full of supernatural creatures. Originally intended as a
free-roaming game, it was significantly streamlined in design and concept to attract a larger, more casual audience. The game received mixed reviews from critics, and was considered Rare's worst and least-popular game. 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. However, in July 2005, Rare posted job openings for Nintendo DS development on its website and said that it was creating "key" DS games. Only two were ever released, with the first one being
Diddy Kong Racing DS, a
remake of the
Nintendo 64 title
Diddy Kong Racing which was released in February 2007, and the second being
Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise, a
life simulation game, released in September 2008. Rare released
Conker: Live & Reloaded, a remake of ''
Conker's Bad Fur Day, in 2005 with updated graphics and a reworked multiplayer option. The game received generally favourable reviews but, similar to Bad Fur Day
, was a commercial failure. Kameo'' was also intended for the GameCube. A new
intellectual property, in it the player character
shape-shifts to solve puzzles. Although both received generally positive reviews from critics and sold more than a million copies, On 2 January 2007, Rare founders Chris and Tim Stamper left the company to "pursue other opportunities". Former lead designer
Gregg Mayles became Rare's creative director and Mark Betteridge the company's studio director. That year saw the release of
Jetpac Refuelled, a remake of
Jetpac for
Xbox Live Arcade.
Nuts & Bolts received significant criticism from players due to its focus on vehicle construction rather than traditional platforming. Though generally receiving positive reviews, the company's games for Microsoft sold poorly and Microsoft decided to restructure the studio at the end of the decade. In March 2010, Rare opened a new facility at Fazeley Studios in
Digbeth,
Birmingham. Later that year, Microsoft confirmed that Scott Henson, a developer who had worked on the hardware and software designs of the Xbox 360 console and
Kinect for Xbox 360, replaced Mark Betteridge as studio manager and announced a focus on Xbox Live avatars. Rare also shifted their focus to Kinect. According to Henson, "Kinect will be the main focus for Rare going forwards as it's a very rich canvas. This is just the beginning of an experience that will touch millions of people". Rare's first Kinect project,
Kinect Sports, was released in November 2010. Originally titled
Sports Star, a more-complex sports
simulation game, the game was streamlined into what Microsoft executive
Don Mattrick hoped would be the Kinect equivalent of
Wii Sports. According to a former Rare employee, the team was worried about the game during its development because of Kinect's limitations. but it was a commercial success, selling three million units by May 2011. Rare and
BigPark, another Microsoft studio, collaborated on the development of a sequel,
Kinect Sports: Season Two. 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. The company had a supporting role in its development, assisting lead developer
Double Helix Games. Another Rare mascot, Conker, was also featured in another Microsoft game,
Project Spark as episodic
downloadable content. Known as ''Conker's Big Reunion'', it was cancelled in 2015. Rare released
Kinect Sports Rivals in 2014. The game was worked on by 150 staff members and a new game engine was developed for it. On 10 February 2015, a group of former Rare employees announced the formation of a new studio,
Playtonic Games, and planned a "spiritual successor" to the
Banjo-Kazooie franchise titled
Yooka-Laylee, which was released on 11 April 2017 with mixed reviews. According to Rare composer
Robin Beanland, the year 2015 would be significant for the company. At
E3 2015, a new compilation game,
Rare Replay celebrating the studio's 30th anniversary, was introduced; it was released in August. The compilation's thirty titles only included games to which Rare owned the intellectual property.
Rare Replay became the most pre-ordered game shown at E3 that year and received critical acclaim upon launch. A new game,
Sea of Thieves, a multiplayer
adventure game marketed as "The Best Game That Rare Has Ever Made", was introduced at E3 that year. It was delayed at the following year's
conference and was released on 20 March 2018. The game received mixed reviews, but was a commercial success; in January 2020, Microsoft declared it the most successful IP it released in the
eighth generation, with more than 10 million players. The game was also released on the
PlayStation 5, marking it as Rare's first product on a
PlayStation console. Since 2018, Rare has been working with
Dlala Studios on
a Battletoads revival for the Xbox One and Windows, which was eventually released in 2020. Rare would also reconnect with Nintendo in 2019 through the addition of Banjo & Kazooie as playable characters in the crossover fighting game
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the
Nintendo Switch as well as re-releases of their games on
Nintendo Switch Online. At the X019 event in November 2019, Rare announced it was developing
Everwild, an action-adventure game for Windows and
Xbox Series X/S. As of January 2020, Rare had more than 200 employees, after growing at a consistent pace for five years. On October 14, 2024, Microsoft announced that Duncan will be promoted to head of Xbox Game Studios in November to succeed the outgoing Alan Hartman, with Joe Neate and Jim Horth to succeed him as studio heads. In July 2025, Microsoft cancelled
Everwild amidst significant layoffs in Microsoft divisions; the game's director
Gregg Mayles, a longtime Rare employee, later left the company in October. ==Culture==