Rare plans more handheld goodness

Rare's handheld team is still in gainful employment if this post on the Rare website is anything to go by, but the firm is remaining tight-lipped on what's next in this area of game development.

Having just released Banjo Pilot in the US, and It's Mr Pants coming out later this month in the UK, Rare's four non-DK related GBA titles (also comprised of Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge and the underrated Sabre Wulf) are done and dusted, and the company is almost ready to talk about its forthcoming handheld plans. Almost.

"So, what now? What's next for Rare on the handheld scene?" a news post on the Rareware site teased. "What's our dedicated team plugging away at in the background as we speak? Well, far be it from us to keep a secret. What we'll actually be doing is -" and with that they left us with nothing more than thin air to grab hold of as we were left to ponder on the direction of its handheld development.

Contradictory statements have been doing the rounds for some time, so we wouldn't rule out Nintendo DS games just yet - especially given how well the machine is performing commercially - but what's more likely are more Gizmondo games. It's Mr Pants is already reportedly coming to the Microsoft-backed system, and with Microsoft effectively treating the enigmatic system as some sort of handheld Trojan, we're fully expecting its efforts to be directed toward a system Microsoft has a vested financial interest in.

As for which games it will turn to next; again that's anyone's guess, but it's a sure bet another Banjo game will emerge, and it wouldn't be too big a surprise to see Rare trawl the back catalogue and revive some old favourites from its past; notably Jet Force Gemini, and - who knows - maybe it will finally get around to reviving Knight Lore or Atic Atac at last? [Tom comes home from press trip; Tom reads through content posted in his absence; Tom discovers Atic Atac reference in second item he reads; Tom isn't remotely surprised any more.]