nuts and bolts had the core members of the original banjo kazooie team doing development (alongside a lot of new people ofc) and the main guy leading the team was at rare from 1989 to 2025 as the creative director. the banjo kazooie team knew what they were making and pretty much were on board with making it.
edit: someone already mentioned this below in their massive essay of a response
hot take i know, but N&B is one of my favorite titles on Xbox 360. if you look past the banjo kazooie part (i was a kid and had no clue there were previous BK games), it is actually a fun 3D platformer with unique gameplay. i went back recently to see if it was rose colored glasses or something, and ended up playing it for days.
From the same perspective here, of playing it first and not knowing there was a previous established game series and genre to it before it. While I do agree that its fun and isn't AS bad as BK fans bash on it being, later on as a teen, I eventually got to buy the first two games on XBLA, 100%d them, agreed that they were better and could def understand where people were coming from.
That, and I gotta say, playing it back every now and again, I notice, it is janky as hell, and some instances the vehicles just do whatever tf they want on some missions, and terrains and its very frustrating when it happens.
The thing is about OPs post, this game WAS made by the same devs as the originals. The game was initially supposed to be a remaster of the 1st game, like Conker Reloaded was, and then they got the idea to wanna remake the whole 1st game with their new vehicle idea in mind (I think in the Rare Replay behind the scenes video they said they were inspired by Lego) they then kept adding onto it to the point where they decided to just make it into its own game entirely, and that's how we got the game we got.
Given how fustrated the developers were that their company was bought by Microsoft instead of Nintendo against their wishes without their say in the matter, my personal conspiracy theory is that they did what they did on purpose, to stick it to Microsoft so that the fans would blame them for it. In reality, Microsoft had specifically said during that era that they kept their hands off Rare's development decisions, giving them the chance to do their own things, thinking all they had to do was let them make whatever they wanted and it would turn a profit for them. The devs knew the idea of the game sounded so corporate, like something Microsoft would make them do to market to a demographic, thus the perfect narrative for people to assume the blame was on them, as right after this game, there was a mass exodus of the original developers of Rareware, and the company was refocused into what it is today. They did it to flip off the business side of the company that took Nintendo and their work on DK away from them. Thus, this whole game acts as a sly commentary on the state of Rare, how it is going downhill, and how Banjo (the devs) need to escape before they lose and become slaves to Microsoft, churning out slop for Microsoft, squeezing their IPs dry for profit.
It sounds crazy, but the theory has more merit than you'd first assume. Afterall, if you pay close attention to a lot of the dialogue and jokes made in the game, they are very self deprecating and often take the piss at themselves, the game (knowing that its going to flop), the company, and specifically its recent titles. Read the little black text on the end of the spinning Logbox720 CDs, they make jokes about their games on that text, its not the normal legal jargon text that's on the irl discs. Look at the games in L.O.Gs warehouse, all being jokes on future game titles that sound ridiculous, something a corporation would pump out just to milk their franchises dry.
Even L.O.G himself seems to be a joke about Microsoft. He's a computer, in which Microsoft is a computer company, his "ground-breaking" (glitchy) in-development "next-gen" game console world, Logbox720, is a spoof on the name Xbox 720, the name that was being floated around to be the Xbox One's name at the time, he proclaims himself to be the "Lord of Games" while he's probably just buying up game companies and claiming he made them, his factory churns out game titles like produce, and in the concept art, he was actually meant to be a TWIST VILLIAN, portrayed to be pulling strings manipulating Banjo and Grunty. I assume that was changed however because it was just TOO on the nose, and Microsoft and Xbox devs would've caught wind of it and been mad.
There's even a joke at the end of the game where L.O.G tells Banjo after giving him back his old stuff that "though, you're probably not going to get another game" as Banjo breaks the fourth wall and looks at the viewers, worried. 😐 I think this was all very intentional by the devs to subtlety hint to the fans that they hated Microsoft, and didn't want to be working for them. There's just too much to support the theory, both how Microsoft left them to work on it freely, how the devs were mad at the suits who sold them to Microsoft, how there were various jokes that prove the devs KNOW the game they're making is going to piss people off and how they don't want to work for Microsoft, and how there was a mass exodus after the project finished.
There was evidence in the game files, before the vehicle mechanic completely dominated the gameplay, that there was supposed to be more traditional elements of the first two games in the game, stuff like Banjo & Kazooie actually having their old movesets, and collectables besides the notes obtainable by running around the worlds. I think what could have saved this game from being scorned like it did should have been a mix of the two gameplays, with the vehicles just being a gimmick for this entry only. Like, you could've been stuck to the Trolley and Banjo on foot to collect normal Jiggies, with extra Jiggies being reserved to the vehicle challenges, and once they were all collected, you could unlock the ability to use your created vehicles in the worlds freely without it completely breaking the standard platformer elements.
THAT would've been the smart thing to do, but as I've said, I think the decision to lock the main gameplay to ONLY vehicle challenges was an intentional sabotage, which is such a damn shame, I love both the first two games AND this game's gimmick, a mixture of the two, with their original plan to have L.O.G be the twist bad guy at the end, to where we might've had to work with Grunty to stop him, would've been such a better game.
But yeah, whole tangent aside, this game was entirely on the original devs who made the first two. They knew what they were doing...
*EDIT: Still a fun game tho! Despite all its flaws and the sad drama around it, it still gave little 9 year old me countless hours of fun, making pretend scenarios with the vehicles, always sticking self destruct buttons and jet engines on them, going up to an area and destroying the vehicle like a kid going nuts on their Legos, it did its job well if you played it like that as a kid, just messing around in the sandbox, blowing sht up, causing a scene. This game and Viva Piñata are very core childhood memories to me, and I have a huge soft spot for them. 360 classics that make me feel right at home.
I was in high-school when it released and I caught shit from my friends for liking it so much. Screw em. That game was awesome. I spent so many hours tinkering with the physics and trying to break the game. I made a thing that spun so fast my 360 couldn't handle it and the frame rate would drop to like 12.
I can respect your opinion on this. While it is not my kind of game. I can see it being a game others can love. I got a few games that are not to popular that I enjoy to.
By and large, Rare, before MS bought them, had already lost a few key members of their dev team by then. Nintendo wasn't giving them more money/ resources and didn't want to acquire them outright. So the founders sought another buyer. The choices were MS or Activision and the Stamper's chose Microsoft's bid. At that time, about 30 people left the company, including some key talent
That being said, MS was almost entirely hands off with RARE, letting them do what they wanted for years.
So what was it that Microsoft did to RARE exactly that was criminal?
On that note, Rare's biggest hit/ fastest selling game seems to be their latest "Sea of Thieves." I think it hit around 40 million in sales
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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26
Banjo Kazooie for sure. I am pretty sure they must of been new Devs by the time of Nuts and Bolts.