The long-rumoured new Banjo-Kazooie game which in development at some point at Microsoft has apparently been canned. That’s according to Nate The Hate who was one of the original people behind the rumour. Nate said on gaming forum ResetEra that he hasn’t heard anything about the project in a while and assumes that it’s been canned.
Haven’t heard an update on that in a while. I’d assume it was shelved at this stage. It did exist when we spoke of it a couple of years ago.
Probably got canned a long with whatever it was that Turn 10 was doing, Everwild and perfect dark. It’s a dark time to be an XBOX fan right now 😮💨
Now? It’s been a dark time to be an Xbox fan since the release of the Xbox one, it’s not dark anymore, it’s straight being blind.
Phil tried turning the ship, and did a decent job UP until the Activision acquisition. Yes the XBO generation wasnt great, but it wasn’t terrible. Excluding 3rd party games we got Cuphead, Both Ori games, Rise of the Tomb Raider,aster chief Collection, Fable remastered, Gears 5, 2 Horizon games, a couple other games that I can’t think of of the top of my head. The introduction to gamepass that was $1 for the longest. And very little games were actually canceled (yes I’m still mad that scale bound was canned but oh well)
This generation started off strong, but ever since the Activision acquisition, Phil has been pushed to the back with Satya making all the decisions and throwing phil under the bus to take the heat every single time.
XBOX was starting to get it’s footing, but has been stumbling for the last 2 years.
Stop defending Phil! Buying Activision wasn’t the problem they’re the only ones making games under Phil they failed to deliver and had horrible leadership not to mention Aaron Greenberg who’s also horrible. If Satya is making the calls he should make the Activision team the head of gaming since they deliver on numbers. This generation did not start of strong Xbox launched a console with no games! The games they make are multiplatform. There is no point for Xbox, Microsoft never wanted to make hardware theh just want software.
Everything has been going downhill since that acquisition. Yes every company has been seeing layoff, but MS has been seeing them at a more constant rate. How many team were shut down before the ABK acquisition? How many games were cancelled? That ABK acquisition also set Phil in the background. You can’t telle that Satya was as on hands with the XBOX division before that.
Let me guess, Greenberg’s comments about Banjo got to you and now you’re mad at him. Well, as a Nintendo/XBOX fan I fully agree with him. No one’s cares about Banjo. We’ve gotten that team to make it’s spiritual successor and no one bought it. We’ve had multiple collectathons and they just don’t do well any more. That genre is dead. The only one that even remotely makes money is Mario, and that’s because Nintendo makes amazing games.
No, not even remotely true. Xbox launched a box with no EXCLUSIVES. But that had a lot to do with what was happening globally. Both MS and Sony were struggling. Phil was the only one to actually come out and admit to not having next gen exclusives.
Well at least we can agree on one thing. MS was, is, and will continue to be a software company. The XBOX brand won’t die, but it will definitely end up a software platform.
No it wasn’t the Xbox One had a great lineup the media gave it too much negativity resulting in the console not selling well. The launch lineup was Killer Instinct 2013, Crimson Dragon, Titanfall, Ryse, they actually had games. Phil and his team made it worse.
Banjo Kazooie deserves so much better. Hopefully Xbox goes full 3rd party soon and can license out the franchise to Toys for Bob to do magic with.
The series really could have been mainstream if it wasn’t held back by Rare’s purchase. 😞
No those games were going no where. Perfect Dark was outsourced to Crystal Dynamics who faced massive layoffs and prioritized Tomb Raider they couldn’t take another project and Everwild was bad from the beginning it was announced with a cg trailer and despite after 2 cgi trailers it turns out the studio had no idea what the gameplay was going to be then it got scrapped years later to be restarted so it was never going to be good. Turn10 only made Forza Motorsport and the last one was a buggy mess despite the time given and it looked bad majority preferred Horizon. This isn’t like Tango and Roundhouse who delivered in Tango’s case or Roundhouse who had a good team. Halo, Coalition, Obsidian, Rare, Undead Labs, Compulsion, Arkane, all should be next for closure.
Apparently, the industry doesn’t want Banjo-Kazooie to exist.
Probably so everyone can flock over the Donkey Kong Bananza, and the Switch 2. Disgusting…..
I don’t think there’s a conspiracy here, gaming executives are just morons that way.
Banjo & Kazooie have not been with Nintendo for over 20 years… how would Donkey Kong disturb this game? Apparently, some still haven’t understood that Banjo & Kazooie and Rare in general have nothing to do with Nintendo anymore…
I always got the feeling the games were in limbo after Nuts & Bolts. I never played Nuts & Bolts, but I really enjoyed playing Conker: Live & Reloaded. Heck, if the game got ported to PC, I’d highly enjoy playing it again.
There is a rumor circulating that Microsoft plans to bring Xbox and Xbox 360 games to PC. If it is true, maybe it is possible the game will be available: https://xboxera.com/2025/06/19/rumor-xbox-to-bring-og-xbox-360-to-pc-via-emulation-as-xbox-classics/
My worry about this is if games are going to be cherrypicked like NSO. I mean, I hope a majority including the Rareware games are all available right on the spot. Microsoft does have a way of innovating technology that other companies don’t have the resources able to.
That’s amazing news, let me play jet set radio future please
If Nuts and bolts didn’t have the Banjo name attached to it, then it would’ve been receive fairly well. It’s a good game for what it is, but it’s definitely no Banjo game, and that why it flopped.
If you ever get a chance to play it, ignore that it’s a banjo game, and just play it for it’s mechanics.
I never played Nuts and Bolts because I’m not a fan of the series. There is still no way the series will be revived. I bet Microsoft is just too busy with their next gen system.
If Everwild and Perfect Dark have been canned (with the latter being very far in development) then You can assume if there was a Banjo Kazooie game then it has most definitely even canned. If it even ever existed.
100% canned. F U Microsoft.
I don’t blame them as a whole I blame the Xbox team they’re horrible at games. The Bethesda division and Activision divisions are the only ones making games. Phil can’t do anything same with Booty and Aaron Greenberg especially
The key word is “assume”.
Step 1: publish a rumor taken entirely out of your ass with no concrete basis for existence.
Step 2: always say “it’ll be revealed next time!” whenever it fails to appear in some event.
Step 3: take advantage of something in real life in order to either confirm of bury the rumor (Microsoft’s mess-up in this case).
Step 4: profit.
From “how to become a reliable leaker at this day and age”.
God I hate the suited bosses. God I hate the fungus.
What did Microsoft buy Rareware for?
Just let Arzest and Evening Star take on Blinx The Cat. Honestly Vicarious Visions should have been given Banjo Kazooie to make a new one and remakes. Evening Star given the budget might be able to do it. Hire Squanch Games to make a new Conker.
Can they please just sell the IP to Nintendo at this point