“I don’t think Rare got credit for the cool stuff it did on Kinect.”
Rare studio head Craig Duncan is proud of the work his team did for Kinect, and speaking to IGN, he highlighted the studio’s desire to take on the unique challenges the technology presented, as well as the cool things Rare was able to accomplish with Kinect Sports.
“Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve learned… and I think Kinect is the ultimate kind of version of that,” Duncan said on the latest episode of our monthly interview show IGN Unfiltered. He highlighted the challenge in developing games for a controller that uses an entirely different form of input and how that type of challenge appeals to Rare’s sensibilities.
“I think there is something in Rare’s DNA—and I think you can see this in Sea of Thieves—that when we’re challenged, when it’s hard, when we’re trying to do something new and difficult that no one’s done before, I think Rare has this almost insatiable need to go do it and prove people wrong and do something different,” Duncan explained. “And I think Kinect definitely represented that.”
He also spoke about the challenge in developing for a device that was receiving so much negative feedback. “I think that’s hard for a team to be working on something that they are putting passion in that they know—it seems like not everyone wants,” Duncan said of Kinect.
“I don’t think Rare got credit for the cool stuff it did on Kinect,” he continued, highlighting the “champion creator” feature they developed for Kinect Sports Rivals—read IGN’s review—where a player can stand in front of the Kinect and the game makes a version of that person. He also pointed out how Kinect Sports was incredibly successful and “one of the biggest franchises in Xbox,” and said it’s because “the team did a great job executing that game.”
Don’t miss our full IGN Unfiltered interview with Duncan for more from the head of Rare, including what the future holds for Sea of Thieves, his thoughts on the possibility of other studios working with Rare’s IP, and more.
Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @alexcosborn.