One of the standout moments from Microsoft’s XO19 event was the reveal of Everwild. Led by 20-year Rare veteran Louise O’Connor and a growing team within the legendary barn-filled Twycross developer, Everwild is a third-person adventure game set “in a natural and magical world”.
That’s not all Rare has on its plate at the moment, of course. While Everwild caught the eye at XO19, Sea of Thieves nears its second Christmas and development on the pirate adventure continues. Alongside these two games, Rare is working with the Essex-based studio Dlala on a new Battletoads. And, within Rare’s famous barns, other things are afoot.
It’s an exciting time for Rare, then, in 2019, the year before the launch of the next Xbox and with two cool games on its books. But it has not always been this way. Before Sea of Thieves met with success, and not long after Microsoft shut down fellow beloved UK studio Lionhead, there were serious questions being asked of Rare’s future. And the studio’s Kinect Sports saga had only fuelled the perception that the magic of old was lost. Things change quickly in the video game industry. Is Rare now back? Did it ever go away?
It was with these questions in mind that I sat down with studio head Craig Duncan, a Rare veteran of nearly nine years and passionate Liverpool fan, to find out more about how Rare got to this point, where it’s going, and how Sea of Thieves and Everwild fit into the masterplan.
EVERWILD – X019 – Announce Trailer Watch on YouTube
Exciting times at Rare! I know you can’t talk about your new IP even though you’ve announced it and named it. But can you talk about how it fits into the current structure of Rare, barns wise?
Craig Duncan: It is a fantastic time for the studio. To be in a position where we’re announcing a brand new IP that we feel very passionate about, it’s very very special. And alongside that we still have a super successful ongoing service-based IP in Sea of Thieves that still has millions of people playing it. We love the community. We love the feedback we get. We’ve had great coverage from you and the team at Eurogamer…
Especially when the monkey throws up.
Craig Duncan: We’ve had monkeys throw up live on camera! But I think for a modern day studio, to have something that is an ongoing project… Joe [Neate] and his leadership team run Sea of Thieves, Louise [O’Connor] and her team run Everwild. And we have a number of central teams that support. Our outsourcing team will support both. Some of our core engine team will support both. There’s obviously things we’ve learned from Sea of Thieves that is tech we can migrate. There’s just a huge amount of benefits of having multiple things go on in the studio. And then we’ve also got the Battletoads project with Dlala. There’s a couple of people working on that as well. We did the Banjo and Smash thing. We’ve got a merchandising and branding team. So I think just as a modern gaming studio, we’ve got lots going on across lots of aspects of the business, which is great.
Can you talk about how Everwild came to be?
Craig Duncan: We will talk about the origin story later. Rare is a very special studio. And for us it’s about finding the heart of what our special games are. I think Rare makes the kind of games the world doesn’t have. Sea of Thieves was a very unique type of game, and I think Everwild is a very unique type of game.
We always incubate ideas and we always incubate things we think have potential and are special and very unlike other games. And when we find something that gets us excited and passionate, then that forms into a real thing.
Why do another new IP and not go to something you’ve got in the bank? A new Banjo Kazooie, for example?
Craig Duncan: If that was our logic we’d have been making Jetpac for the last 35 years. The great thing about making games is putting a set of passionate people together making something they truly love and believe in. That’s the goal of making anything. That’s why Sea of Thieves is the game it is. That’s why Everwild will be the game it will be, because we have a team of people who are truly passionate about the thing they’re creating. Then my job as the studio head is to create an environment where they can go do that, and they can do their best work, and we can create something amazing. It’s not about me picking the game I want made, or I want people to go do. It’s about the team building the thing that is in their burning desire and heart to go make the most amazing experience.
Sea of Thieves – X019 – The Seabound Soul Content Update Announce Watch on YouTube
On Sea of Thieves, how will you manage its ongoing development now you’re making Everwild?
Craig Duncan: We’ve been trying a lot of different things. We had our first year. We then did quarterly quite big, almost DLC-style updates, with a lot of little fixes and events and things. We then launched Sea of Thieves Anniversary. Since then we’ve switched to monthly updates. Part of what we announced at XO is the November monthly update, which is a brand new Tall Tale, with the origin story of the shipwreck you can find in the game. And then we’re introducing fire bombs, which are, without using my bringing the heat puns, is the hot new tool we’re adding to Sea of Thieves.
You know we like puns.
Craig Duncan: There’s many in fire. I’ll let you guys pick better ones than I will.
Sounds lit.
Craig Duncan: There you go. Perfect. But, you can throw them, so it’s the first throwable weapon in Sea of Thieves. Like all things in Sea of Thieves, it’s a tool. So we’re really interested to see how people use them. You can load them into cannons. Obviously if they ignite on a ship, the ship will set on fire. It’s just another game changer for Sea of Thieves that will give you a new tool and a new set of things to play with. So, we feel really good about the monthly updates. We’re actually having a stronger year two, than we did year one.
In terms of what?
Craig Duncan: We don’t really talk about numbers too much. But I think our December this year will be stronger than our December last year. And we’re well into year two of Sea of Thieves now. Our anniversary not only brought new people into Sea of Thieves, but a huge reengagement moment. Generally what we see is, when we introduce new events and content and monthly updates, we see people come into the game as new players, and we see people come into the game that have played – maybe they played at launch or anniversary and they’ve stopped playing for a few months – and they come back, and some of that’s through Xbox Game Pass, some of that’s through people recommending it to their friends, some of that’s through people seeing the game being streamed, and then going and buying it. So we feel really healthy about Sea of Thieves. We haven’t run out of creative ideas to put into it and the team is still really passionate about Sea of Thieves.
Monkey vomits on Sea of Thieves stream clip Watch on YouTube
I remember going to the studio in the run-up to the launch of Sea of Thieves. There was so much talk about the impact Game Pass would have on it, and whether it would be successful. I remember speaking to you about it and you were confident. Two years later, you must be thrilled with how it all worked out, going from some of the uncertainty, and Game Pass wasn’t anywhere close to what it is now.