Microsoft recently told Eurogamer that the team responsible for the original Banjo-Kazooie games is working on a new installment to the series for the Xbox 360. It’s been some time since we’ve seen the bear/bird duo in pure platforming pandemonium. Phil Specter, Microsoft Game Studios general manager, assures us that Banjo is in the right hands.

Specter stated: “Team sizes are so different now and we have more animators now than the full Banjo 1 team, but the key core team is really the same.”

The face of gaming has changed considerably since the days of N64. Gaming has become more gritty and realistic. Games that may come off as ‘child-like’ have to fight for their place on the shelves. Specter had this to say about Banjo-Kazooie’s appeal across age lines:

“Certain people look at the bear and the bird and think it’s a kids’ game. What we think is that Banjo as an intellectual property has the ability to span audiences.”

“For us in the next Banjo game it was about evolving the gameplay while keeping the approachability of the characters, but the depth of the gameplay is very important. This can’t turn into some minigame-based paper game. It has to be something that has a ton of substance.”

Little has been released about the gameplay, or why Specter claims this game to be innovative with greater depth than the previous two titles. I would expect that from current gen game. We just have to wait for the details to trickle out of the studios.

Come on Rare! We are all patiently waiting for a game to wow us again. It’s been some time. Besides the art style, Kameo didn’t deliver, and who really loved Perfect Dark Zero? I would love to see a platformer as innovative as the original Conker’s Bad Fur Day, is that too much to ask? I didn’t think so.

via:Eurogamer

image via: Destructoid