Rare Reveals Rare Replay, Sea of Thieves, and More at E3 2015
A pirate MMO, a collection of classic games, and much more cool stuff came from Rare at E3 2015.
Well, that was unexpected.
The internet has been abuzz recently about what developer Rare was going to announce at today's Xbox E3 Media Briefing. Many gamers thought that a new Battletoads could be on the way, thanks to Xbox head Phil Spencer rocking a Battletoads T-shirt at the Windows 10 press briefing earlier this year.
We even speculated about which other classic Rare franchises could be making a comeback.
It turns out, all of them are. Along with an entirely new franchise to boot.
Rare's presentation began with a video recapping some of the classic games from throughout its history. Games like Perfect Dark and Conker showed up on the screen. The video, which you can watch below, was for Rare Replay, a collection of 30 classic Rare games that will hit stores on August 4. Other games making a return include Banjo Kazooie,Viva Pinata, and yes, Battletoads.
But while we didn't get a brand new Battletoads, Rare did announce a new IP.
The pirate-themed Sea of Thieves was called "the most ambitious game Rare has ever created" by studio head Craig Duncan.
The gameplay video showed an MMO-style shared world with multiple players interacting with each other across naval battles and exploring out in the open world.
No launch date or window was given for Sea of Thieves.
Rare's presentation was one of the biggest surprises of the show. Not only are gamers getting something brand new that they never saw coming, but Microsoft finally seems to be willing to tap into Rare's vast catalog. Microsoft has taken a lot of flack for not fully capitalizing on Rare since purchasing the company and taking them away from Nintendo in 2002, but this year's announcements are definitely a step in the right direction.