Rare Replay Rare Retrospective

Back in late 2014, when we decided that the 30-year anniversary of the Rare name was a milestone we should mark in grand old style, the idea of bringing together some of Rare’s most beloved games and landmark achievements was high on the list. As with most things in their early, ambitious stages, we started out wanting to include 30 games to mark those 30 years. 30 games in one package! Selected from 30 years of console and computer formats! Only madmen would even pitch such an idea.

Somehow, what we ended up with on launch day was exactly what we’d pictured in our best case scenario. Actually, more: we somehow found time to add Snapshot challenges, a grand total of 10,000 gamerscore including the Xbox 360 titles, and a whole gallery of unlockable Rare Revealed content featuring Making Of videos, unreleased tunes and concept artwork, and world’s first looks at prototype projects that never hit the shelves.

Rare Replay was a project that benefited massively from the enthusiasm of its team: a dedicated bunch merging long-term Rare veterans with newer recruits who’d grown up living and breathing these very games. There were massive challenges to overcome in the fields of tech, art, test and paperwork, but all were overcome in time for Rare Replay to be announced at E3 2015 and released less than two months later.