Despite Cancelling Everwild, Xbox Has Just Hired Its Executive Producer For A Major Role

Any idea what Rare are working on now
Anything new?

@OldGamer999 I personally reckon they'll be shuttered as soon as they sunset Sea of Thieves in a few years, much like Turn10 and FM.

On topic of this news, I'm glad they found a role. Curious to see what comes of it as time moves on.

Can't say I'm disappointed about Everwild as I have no idea what the game actually would have ended up as. There was talk of an MMO with NO combat - which didn't sound very appealing. Apart from its 'cutesy' artstyle, it didn't seem to have a lot going for it.

Why would they hire someone who couldn't get a game out in a decade to be Chief Of Staff?

@Kaloudz I could see Rare releasing some smaller titles similar to how Obsidian Entertainment released Pentiment.

I think Rare is highly regarded in under Xbox. They've supported Xbox in many crucial moments have proven to be quite versatile: They provided several launch titles for the Xbox 360 with Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo and Viva Pinata, they helped the Kinect camera with Kinect Sports and Sea of Thieves is one of the few ongoing successful live-service games which was developed internally rather than being acquired by Microsoft.

The former studio head Craig Duncan is now the head of Xbox Game Studios. I don't think he'd allow a studio he was part of to be closed that easily. But Rare, like many others in the industry, doesn't have the luxury anymore to spend a large amount of time and resources on a project without any results.

@TheGameThrifter all of them keep failing upwards

@TheGameThrifter Hey, didn't you know? Not making games is a big part of their strategy now!

Everwild isn't just an isolated incident.
Rare has a 30-year history of long, tumultuous development cycles: Goldeneye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Star Fox Adventures, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo, and Perfect Dark Zero (I'm probably forgetting some) all had at least one major shake-up: switching to a different console, stalling development before rebuilding the team, and/or turning into a completely different game!

Unfortunately, this is more expensive now than it used to be, and the higher-ups these days may not have the same patience.

I hope O'Connor gets to guide and support- maybe even advocate for- the game studios, as opposed to sitting helplessly while higher-level execs shut everything down.

@Kaloudz
That’s a view point, they could close in a few years once sea of thieves support is finished.

Not sure who is left there from the old BK days, else they could have worked on a 3d platform game.
But getting one to say Mario Odyssey or DKB level of standard will be a big ask.

I wouldn't read too much into everwild. It's a game that just never came together. They shouldn't have even teased it. There probably isn't any crazy stories there or wild details, it just didn't work out. The craziest thing will always be giving it a slot at a showcase when it didn't have a concept for what it would be.

I think Rare has a long future of sea of thieves development and more live service games.

Any significance with a former Rare guy also being the head of XGS? Also, with Everwild I'm disappointed that we never saw any actual gameplay of it. Disappointed and concerned. Though Chief of Staff is a very different job than heading up a game and I'm sure there were issues outside the purview of "executive director". Hopefully she has a great career at XGS and XGS has a great time going forward.

@Kaloudz I'd be surprised considering how big Sea of Thieves is. Turn 10 got downsized because Forza Motorsport was largely a failure and they don't need that many people for just small and periodic updates.

Rare definitely needs SOMETHING before long, but they should have plenty of time to get it. Maybe even like a return to AA sized games and doing that in tandem with Sea of Thieves. SOT as of now is like one of the biggest games Xbox is putting out and it just got a huge boon through PS. They have time. It just depends on what the studio is capable of doing with it. Like that they haven't really been able to put out Everwild or even show a gameplay trailer (like confident issue to show gameplay for it) in all that time since reveal is bad. But it's not an impossible place to come back from. Though I do wish that'd been canceled sooner if it just wasn't working.

So much for the other staff but at the same time they really didn't have an idea what to make of the game either so bound to happen.

That aside, a lot of business nonsense speak there and we will se what happens.

Not a fan of Xbox or Playstation 1st party these days, just reading the news about them and ignoring them on release with better 3rd party niche games to play or back compat, so if they change things enough sure, if not, couldn't care less.

@smoreon you can't go listing Rares sins and leave off the avatar system revamp they were responsible for.

@Jenkinss The new avatar system is not from Rare. It's from Microsoft.

Instead of incorporating prosthetic arms or wheelchairs, they created avatars that can't be used in the game!!

@TrollOfWar @WildConcept6 @OldGamer999 It's just a crazy time isn't it. I'd certainly be a "little" bit worried if I was working at Rare or T10, but I can only imagine the numbers team being a driving force for decisions like this. Surely there's an accountant somewhere (or a few of them) that weigh up the cost of a studio vs the cost of the income said studio makes? Or is that not how it works?

@Kaloudz
Yes you would have thought, that the studios the business has to make a profit or at least break even over a certain period of time.

Confidently incorrect, if you were around at the time you'd remember it absolutely was Rare.

https://www.giantbomb.com/avatar-support/3015-3874/forums/rare-will-rebuild-the-xbox-360-avatar-it-has-the-t-439318/

@Jenkinss Did you just skim my post, or do you really consider BK and Goldeneye to be "sins"? That was just a list of games which I'm aware had major issues/shake-ups in development- and most of them eventually turned out to be quite good!

If I wanted to list Rare's sins/mismanagement, then yeah, it'd include spending a decade on Kinect and avatars (old and new), followed by a decade working on a single live service game.

@smoreon I consider several games on the list sins but yes I could have worded it better.

Goldeneye was maybe an ok game for kids (violence aside), but if you had access to a PC it was an unplayable dumpster fire. A year of playing Quake with WASD+mouse controls, and then having a friend ask you to come play Goldeneye with them, was pretty awful. It was a very different time for console FPS. 30 years later everything still plays like Quake, consoles had a few more years to get there.

@Kaloudz I mean that's 100% gotta be how it works. Phil constantly says they have to run a profitable business and Microsoft IS a big penny pusher. We also know that they've chosen to focus investments on "AI" (unfortunately) like the rest of big (speculation) tech, which is what sparked the blanket cuts across Microsoft.

And this is what we saw. What was canceled were projects that were being funded but not going anywhere after 4 or 5 or more years. And the only studio closed was one that failed to put out ANY game in 7 years and it was looking like that'd be 8 if not 9 years. But that's also why I'm not as worried about Rare as I am Turn 10. Even after the Everwild cancelation SOT is still massive and it just got bigger due to the PS port. It's only continuing to grow. I think Rare needs something else (new) before too long, but I also think they have the time to make that something else. The big issue though is just the question of, "Why did Everwild not pan out?" because if it was due to issues at the studio then those need to be hammered out before the next game development projection. That said Turn 10 should also be fine at the size they are currently. They can support the latest Motorsport which is meant to be a forever game AND help other studios (a big reason why Xbox wants everyone on Unreal) until it's time for the next big Motorsport game.

It is a scary time in general in the world economy and especially the USA economy. The job market is god awful right now, prices are terrible, and yet we just keep seeing AI stocks surge which has a very "roaring 20s" feeling for people. That's not even getting into the other big issue affecting the economy (which I don't know if it's taboo to mention here, and I kinda hate that I even feel like it could be). It feels volatile right now. It IS volatile right now. And this is falling COVID-19 and the gaming industry over expanding and now needing to pull back, general tech industry woes, massive saturation in the gaming industry (too many games), skyrocketing costs for development, and stagnating markets due to fights for the attention economy. It's tough right now and it's scary. I am concerned for everyone employeed in the industry. Sony isn't even chasing AI and they've canned a similar percentage of developers and closed so many studios due to bad investments and increasing costs. We've seen console hardware prices RISE this generation (now even the OG switch) from all manufacturers. Publishers continue to lay off workers and shutter studios each year. And it really sucks, and feels really scary, because companies like Microsoft AND Sony and a lot of publishers actually are reporting massive numbers for revenue that's still higher than ever. Where is all that money going and how bad are profit margins? It's crazy times right now. I just hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel and I worry it'll be a really long tunnel.

@Jenkinss Gonna have to disagree there- the campaign was brilliant, bringing some added depth and variety in its mission structures. Not quite System Shock or Deus Ex, but more in that direction than the straightforward action formula of Quake and similar games. And I found the second control scheme (where you aim with the stick and walk with the C buttons) to be very versatile and responsive, almost on par with the dual-stick layout of Halo (etc.), once you get used to it.

But I can understand how the deathmatch mode in particular would seem lame from a PC gamer's perspective at the time, especially with GE making you squint at a 160x120 resolution window updating at an average of 20fps!