Playtonic Games has addressed a rumor suggesting it’s working on a new Banjo-Kazooie game for Project Scarlett, saying that it isn’t helping with development on a new entry in the legendary series.
Rumors began to circulate as a result of Playtonic’s recent hiring of character artist Ed Bryan, who followed up the announcement of his new role with a tweet containing an image of a Microsoft-branded bag. Ed noted that he “never really had any plans to use this again,” with many suggesting that Playtonic could be working with Microsoft on a brand new Banjo game.
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This was then followed by Platonic’s co-owner updating his LinkedIn profile to state that the studio is working on “game #3, #4 and the #5 one too which is the one I always thought would be game #1.”
Playtonic is made up of developers who helped create the Banjo-Kazooie series, with the influence of the classic Nintendo 64 series being firmly present in the studio’s Yooka-Laylee games. Outside of Banjo and Kazooie appearing as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Microsoft has mostly squandered its ownership of the Banjo-Kazooie license, with fans requesting a brand new game for years now.
However, Playtonic has now dismissed the rumors that it’s helping bring this unconfirmed new Banjo-Kazooie game to life, saying that it remains an independent studio committed to its own original projects.
The statement from Playtonic, as posted on Twitter, is as follows:
“Hey everyone!
We wanted to address the speculation currently swarming our mentions. We hate to be the bearers of news that isn’t what you want to hear, but we thought it best to come out and say — we aren’t working on a new Banjo-Kazooie game and we remain an independent studio.
While we would love to work with the bear and bird again, that ball isn’t in our court. With that said, we are keen to continue progressing as a studio, carrying the experience of games we worked on, old and new, to create new characters and adventures for you to (hopefully) love.
We’re sorry if this isn’t what you wanted to hear from us, at first, we found it amusing that Ed Bryan’s bag is being used as serious “evidence”, but we reckon it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t set the record straight.
Playtonic Games x”
Banjo-Kazooie creator Rare still remains a Microsoft-owned studio, so there’s still the possibility that the developer could release a new entry in the series at some point in the future. However, judging by the company’s above statement, Playtonic won’t be involved if this day does arrive.
