We’ve finally gotten a real look at Playtonic Games upcoming Banjo Kazooie spiritual successor, Project Ukulele.
The reveal comes via the latest issue of EDGE magazine, where Playtonic boss Gavin Price boldly says that he wants to make “old-style Rare games.”
Most of the staff working on Project Ukulele are in fact veteran developers from Rare, of all studios. Rare put out such classics as Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Piñata, Donkey Kong Country and so on. When speaking to EDGE magazine, Gavin Price said:
“We consider it a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie. We want to make a game where you control a fun character, learn new skills, add some new twists to the genre.”
Aside from the above concept art, we do know the game is a 3D platformer, will have music done by series composers Grant Kirkhope and David Wise, and will primarily be coming to PC. When asked over whether or not the game could make it to Wii U, they responded with yes, but only if there is a demand.
“There’s been so much pent-up passion for doing something like this, because we’ve all sat on a lot of these ideas since Banjo-Tooie came out,” Gavin Price told Edge. Playtonic reportedly has enough funding to publish their first game independently, but they are looking for a financial partner.
The studio is currently somewhat small, although they are looking to ramp up production after creating their proof-of-concept, increasing their staff to somewhere between 10 to 15 people.
There are apparently more veteran, ex-Rare employees waiting to sign onto the project. Chris Sutherland, the lead programmer on Donkey Kong Country and the Banjo-Kazooie games, is on the team – and just like the aforementioned games, he’ll be voicing the characters in Playtonic’s new game.
Playtonic is looking to put their game onto Steam Early Access as soon as possible, and they are looking to developing games in other genres following their first game – but only if they naturally progress to them, instead of forcing the team to work on something else.
We’ll keep you guys posted.
