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It was not long before consoles took another evolutionary leap and Rare turned its hand to developing for the Nintendo 64. The first fruits of the company's next-gen labours hit the shelves in 1996 as arcade upgrade KI Gold, hotly pursued into 1997 by a trio of titles which pushed the hardware all the way and earned themselves places in more than a few Best of the Year lists: Blast Corps, GoldenEye and Diddy Kong Racing (DKR the first to be published under the Rare name).
Riding high on the acclaim generated by previous outings, Rare ploughed straight into 1998 with 3D adventure romp Banjo-Kazooie. This mascot-based title went down a storm and expectations were bubbling over for future offerings, which in 1999 took the form of N64 epics Jet Force Gemini and the long-awaited Donkey Kong 64, plus Rare's first outings on the Game Boy Color - Conker's Pocket Tales and Mickey's Racing Adventure (the latter introducing a momentous franchise deal with Disney). |
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During 1999 Rare underwent another fundamental change, finally making the move from its long-time converted farmhouse headquarters. Its new location was to be a custom-built centre of operations far more suited to the business of creating cutting-edge videogames.
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The multi-million pound development at Manor Park, just down the road from Twycross, was designed and constructed over the course of five years to strict guidelines that ensured the preservation of the area's rural charm. Featuring fully landscaped grounds, a state-of-the-art internal climate management system and, vitally, much more free space to house the increasing body of staff, this new HQ offered the perfect environment for Rare's teams to go on creating the highly-regarded titles for which they'd become known.
There was no slowing down in 2000, with perhaps Rare's most heavily-anticipated line-up to date: Perfect Dark (N64 and GBC), Mickey's Speedway USA, Banjo-Tooie and the Game Boy Color adaptation of Donkey Kong Country all hit the shelves in this benchmark year. In 2001, development wound down slightly in preparation for another console generation shift, the company's only release this year being its N64 swansong, the M-rated comedy adventure Conker's Bad Fur Day. |
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