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Creator / Rare

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dd6b49efca9d8e750c84cbc5392de15e.png

We're explorers, creators and magic makers. We forge new paths, building worlds and adventures to surprise and delight players around the world.
— Rare describing themselves on their website

Rare Ltd. is a Twycross-based (though they started in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, also in Leicestershire) video game development company founded by Chris and Tim Stamper in 1982. They're famous for their pioneering of sophisticated technology to make video games, the sheer amount of double entendres, the idiosyncratic little mysteries they weave into their games that leave gamers pondering for decades, and their media-shy nature.

While the company attained most of their early fame (as "Ultimate Play the Game") through their games on the 1980s home computers such as ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and MSX, they are best known for their work with Nintendo. In 1985, the Stamper brothers figured out how to reverse-engineer an interesting new video game console from Japan known as the Famicom. Nintendo was so impressed that they gave them the budget to produce titles for the system, which they proceeded to do to the tune of around sixty games under the new name "Rare" (having sold the "Ultimate" brand). While this period brought about games like Battletoads, it would be the SNES-era where they'd find the start of their biggest wind of fame and success. Their subsequent experiments with the new technology once again managed to impress Nintendo, with the Japanese company now buying a 25% stake in the company (which would eventually grow to 49%) and giving Rare the option to work with one of their characters. They chose Donkey Kong, a once popular character that had fallen by the wayside in the face of Super Mario Bros.' popularity, believing that they could revitalize the character and make him relevant once more.

Now doing business under the trademark of "Rareware", the company released Donkey Kong Country in 1994, which became the best-selling game for the system behind only Super Mario World, and the ape would get additional games throughout the SNES's lifespan. The company would hit their stride come the Nintendo 64, where they became well-known for such games as Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, Diddy Kong Racing, Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, (and subsequently its sequel Banjo-Tooie), Donkey Kong 64, and Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Early during the Nintendo GameCube's life, however, a big change was on the horizon. While in the midst of producing Star Fox Adventures, Rare began looking for potential companies to fully buy out the studio, to help offset the rising costs of game development. With Nintendo surprisingly refusing to acquire the studio, the Stamper brothers found themselves being bought by Microsoft, who had recently entered the console video game market and had been courting the developer for some time. The deal closed in late 2002 after Activision failed to make a better offer, and Rare was now a first-party developer for the Xbox. Rare retained ownership over their own characters and properties in the change, while Microsoft granted Rare permission to continue producing games for Nintendo handhelds if they so wished. For their part, Nintendo did actually end up acquiring a Western game developer that same year after all — the American Retro Studios.

Under Microsoft, however, Rareware (now simply "Rare" once again) would make games that received mixed-to-positive critical reception, with most becoming financial disappointments to varying degrees. Fans would come to feel that the UK-based developer had lost some of the magic it had when under Nintendo, and this sentiment would only become stronger over time, with the departure of Chris and Tim Stamper in 2007 not helping. Following the fan backlash towards and commercial failure of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Rare would find themselves tasked with making sports games solely for the Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral. Kinect Sports ended up being the most successful game produced by the developer in years, leading to a similarly successful sequel, but a failed third entry on the Xbox One.

By this point, several key employees had left Rare to form the indie company Playtonic Games and make the kind of games Rare used to be famous for in the N64 era—their first game, Yooka-Laylee, would release in 2017 to mixed-to-positive reviews. In addition, while Rare properties would start to be utilized once again, it would be other companies playing with the characters, such as Double Helix Games with Killer Instinct. The tides would turn with Sea of Thieves in 2018; while the open-world pirate game received mixed critical reception, it ultimately garnered positive audience reception upon release and soon became one of Rare's most successful titles of all time. In addition to continued support on Sea of Thieves, Rare has been developing Everwild, an action-adventure game currently scheduled for a 2024 release.

List of games:

    open/close all folders 
    Ultimate Play the Game (1982-1987) 
  • Jetpac
    • Lunar Jetman
  • Atic Atac
  • PSSST
  • Tranz Am
  • Cookie
  • The Sabreman series
  • Alien 8
  • Nightshade
  • Cyberun
  • Gunfright
  • Martianoids
  • Bubbler
  • The Staff of Karnath
    • Entombed
    • Blackwyche
    • Dragonskulle
  • Outlaws
  • Imhotep

    Rare (1985-1995) 

    Rareware (1994-2003) 

    Rare, a subsidiary of Microsoft (2003-to-present) 

Tropes associated with Rare:

  • Author Appeal: Funny Animal, Dem Bones, Cool Cars, Forced Transformation, Pirates, and Sphere Eyes. Female characters are also prone to Hartman Hips, and Animesque.
  • British Humour: Well they are a British company, after all. It's particularly visible in their Nintendo 64 platformers, which have a good deal of snark and Black Comedy to go along with the improved storytelling capabilities of The Fifth Generation of Console Video Games.
  • Compilation Re-release: Rare Replay for the Xbox One was a release of thirty titles they were well known for. For licensing reasons, this naturally excluded their Donkey Kong games or GoldenEye (prior to its' Updated Re-release, which owners of the digital version of Rare Replay can download for free).
  • Creator Thumbprint: Keys. Enormous keys, bigger and heavier than the characters, the most famous being the infamous ice key from Banjo-Kazooie/Banjo-Tooie. Both Diddy Kong Racing and Donkey Kong 64 feature gigantic gold keys as plot coupons; finding or using a key is always a momentous occasion. Atic Atac was all about finding the four small(ish - they're the same size as a wrench) keys that unlocked the doors to find the ACG Master Key, a gold key that took up your entire inventory.
  • Development Hell: If one were to list all of their announced games that had been cancelled (Donkey Kong Racing, Kameo 2, etc.), one would be here all day. This started way back in their Speccy days, with Mire Mare. At least the first Kameo and Sabreman still managed to see the light of day (the former on Xbox, the latter on Game Boy Advance). Given that Rare can no longer make games for Nintendo consoles, Donkey Kong Racing ain't never seeing the light of day, and the way things are looking, while something at least came out of Dinosaur Planet and Diddy Kong Pilot (they were turned into Star Fox Adventures and Banjo-Pilot respectively), it's pretty much a given Donkey Kong Racing won't even have that kind of luck.
  • Executive Meddling: Star Fox Adventures was originally going to be an original IP called Dinosaur Planet for the N64. However, early in development, Shigeru Miyamoto saw the notes, noticed the main character looked similar to Fox McCloud, and convinced them to make it a Star Fox game instead.
  • Follow the Leader: It cannot be denied that Rare had a tendency to play to the trends, exploring the same genres and tropes as other games, usually from Nintendo, that had recently been successful. Donkey Kong Country followed Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Banjo-Kazooie followed Super Mario 64. Diddy Kong Racing followed Mario Kart. Killer Instinct followed Mortal Kombat (1992). This was evident even before Donkey Kong Country as Battletoads followed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze. While they have been making an effort to avoid this during their Microsoft years, the Xbox Live Avatars blatantly imitate Miis.
  • Friendly Rivalry: In their golden age the teams within Rare were closed off from each other and according to Chris Seavor in his director's commentary for Conker's Bad Fur Day would constantly be trying to out do one another when working on their projects.
  • Funny Animal: Often sporting Heroic Builds (the Battletoads, their take on Donkey Kong, Kremlings, etc.).
  • Gotta Catch Them All: The trend started in the Donkey Kong Country series, where progressively more and more items were needed to attain 100% Completion. Later, Banjo-Kazooie, while a great game, had a rather large number of collectibles. Finally, Donkey Kong 64 took things up to eleven with the same amount of collectibles given to all characters.
    • The Rare Replay compilation embraces Rare’s history by featuring possibly their most daunting collection task of getting all 330 stamps. This requires beating all 80 snapshots and the 6 unique playlists, and completing every milestone for all 30 games (5 per pre-Nintendo 64 game, 10 per Nintendo 64 or beyond game), some of which require absolute mastery or the individual 100% Completion of their games.
  • Pop-Culture Urban Legends: There was an old rumor that Timber would have his own game with Pipsy and Bumper as his co-stars, which Rare has denied. While it is true that Timber was the protagonist of Pro Am 64 before it was retooled into Diddy Kong Racing, the alleged Timber 64 was supposed to have been a different game entirely. This trope was later subverted when Rare dev Kev Bayliss mentioned in an article that Timber was going to be the main character of Dinosaur Planet (a.k.a Starfox Adventure) at one point. In fact, the game started out as a Genre Shift sequel to Diddy Kong Racing.
  • Promoted Fanboy: In the E3 2016 gameplay trailer for Sea of Thieves, two of the members of crew 3 are Chad McCanna and Hyle Russell, diehard Rare fans who are best known for Elvis And Slick Monty and DK Vine.
  • Schedule Slip: During their time as a second party developer for Nintendo, it wasn't uncommon for Rare to delay games if the higher ups felt they needed more time. Reportedly, one of the reasons why Nintendo declined to buy out Rare was because they were annoyed that the studio didn't have any of their in-development titles ready in time to launch alongside the GameCube.
  • Trolling Creator: People at Rare have openly admitted they put the occasional item pickup in their games that is easily visible but in reality completely inaccessible, just to drive players crazy looking for a secret way to get them.
  • Uncredited Role: Most of their games never credit the voice actors. Part of this is because many of them (notably Chris Sutherland, Grant Kirkhope, and Kevin Bayliss) are simply Descended Creators working within the company's other departments.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda: The Stop-n-Swop feature in Banjo-Kazooie that would've been used in Tooie, but due to Rareware not anticipating the N64 being unable to transfer data between both games, it was dropped.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Rare at one point was going to help the development of more Power Glove-based games as well as the unreleased sequel accessory the Turbo Glove, but they stopped these plans due to the critical failure of the Power Glove and lack of public in-trust.
    • The company was given an offer to be bought out by Activision, but the deal fell through. Funnily enough, Activision itself would be bought by Microsoft two decades later.
    • In the mid 200s Rare teamed up with 4Kids Entertainment with the intent to create television shows and toylines based on their IPs, including Banjo, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, and Viva Piñata. Only the last one managed to receive a cartoon before 4Kids' financial woes led to their bankruptcy.

Alternative Title(s): Ultimate Play The Game, Rare Ltd, Ashby Computers And Graphics, Rareware

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