Nuts & Bolts came about after an incredibly disheartening meeting with Microsoft. I'm probably going to kill the spirit of this, but whatever, you deserve to know.
It was a chilly day in Autumn when Microsoft was doing their rounds - as their involvement with projects like Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo continued, they began to get more and more invasive in the creative process.
Our little Banjo team had been relatively untouched; with Kameo entering the foray of a future RPG license and Perfect Dark promising a new FPS title for MS, they had exactly what they wanted to launch for the Xbox 360, and the team working on "That Banjo game" seemed to be left out of the inspections.
On one of their tours we decided to mock up a presentation to show of our latest efforts, which was a title nearly 19 months in development and I'd say around 85% complete.
You're going to hate this.
We set up an elaborate demo of Banjo-Theeie for the tour in one of our screening rooms, and three reps from Microsoft were invited for our initial "Sneak preview".
The preview would have delighted any developer - our programmers and artists worked in tandem to create these incredibly detailed landscapes with excellent draw - without taxing the Xbox 360 either, which was a real shock!
We had a few levels on show, the preview focusing on the most impressive, so we had a bit where Banjo jumped from the top of the castle in Fairly Tall Tales while a few rigged turrets exploded in one of our pre-rendered parody sequences (slow motion and all that).
It zoomed right in on his face as he pulled an exaggerated scream in slo-mo and cut to the next area which was one of our underwater levels. As Banjo swam around collecting notes you could see schools of fish in pockets, and as Banjo began swimming up and you got an idea of the sheer immensity of its scope - it just looked like it went up forever, with our thick groupings of fish swimming around endlessly.
We then cut to a Jiggy collecting bit in our Gladiator arena level (ostensibly Staggering Stadium as I recall, though Jiggoseum was considered as well), showed a really intricate flying sequence in a beach level, showed off some seriously trippy anti-gravity spin jumping in our space-themed level before rescuing a family of Jinjo's in our Western showcase.
The presentation ended, we turned on the lights and enthusiastically turned to the representatives, all smiles - we were the only ones.
I shit you not here - one of the reps was putting away a cellphone, which means instead of watching the video, he was doing fuck knows what with his phone, completely ignorant of the countless hours from artists, programmers, musicians and so on - that really got under my skin.
"So...", began the fat one in the center breaking the silence, "The efforts from the other teams are coming along quite nicely - in fact, we're expecting the RPG and Shooter title to be nearly ready for launch" (Also, I should point out here, while Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero were farther along than Banjo, they were in no way 'ready for launch', serious testing would have to be done in the meantime, and after Microsoft left everyone went into a panic).
They went on to analyze the Banjo game, citing demographics, and statistics and other such frivolity that they churn up in these situations - the fact we had been on and off Banjo since 2002 (Gamecube title before the buyout) was their main crux in the argument.
They didn't like the humor, that was the first thing forward, and they didn't like the music, and they didn't like this or that, I honestly stopped listening once it became nonstop criticism, my gut must have fallen through to the floor.
"...So I'm afraid in this current climate, such a title wouldn't hit the mark per say..."
Completely unsympathetic, just a droning corporate monotone voice that tells a tight-knit team they've wasted 19 months of hard work.
It didn't matter that it was nearly finished, it didn't matter that the fans would love it, it didn't matter that it used the power of the 360 to make the previous entries look tame in comparison. What mattered instead was that the game was canceled - that was that.
A tired apology, a few shaking hands, false smiles and they were gone.
Their parting words as I balled my fists:
"But, we do look forward to seeing what you come up with next time..."
To make an incredibly long and sad story short, a few visits with Microsoft later culminated in Banjo getting a second chance - though it would only be possible if we combined the efforts of a second team into our own.
It probably won`t surprise you to learn that the team we were merged with was working on an inventive vehicle building title.
On paper it looks like a match made in heaven - one team has an interesting concept, but no plot, no characters and no structure.
- the other team has a plot, characters and structure, but no concept that would set it out as unique.
We tried our best to remake Banjo-Threeie into what we wanted, but the combined issues of Microsoft demanding changes and the team expanding to an unmanageable size meant that organization, passion and productivity were the first casualties.
When all was finished, Microsoft approached us with an interesting motion control device, while Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was released to the excited masses.
I'm sorry.
I'm so, so, sorry.
. I really wish MS didn't own the IP. It's just being sat on right now. I wish former Rare employees could form a new studio along with the beloved Banjo name and make Banjo-Threeie. It will never, ever happen though 
