Fans of Rare’s 3D platformer, Banjo-Kazooie, can finally take the bear-bird duo on a new outing in a game exclusively available on PlayStation.
The game in question is called Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania, and it is available to play in MediaMolecule’s Dreams for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility. Creator William Butkevicius, also known as Eupholace, previously worked on Trip’s Voyage, another Dreams creation that gained prominence for its craft. His latest creation has allowed Banjo-Kazooie fans to get a taste of how a new entry in the series could end up being.
Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania Gameplay
Gameplay footage from Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania can be seen below.
The fan-made title is quite faithful to the original Banjo-Kazooie games. So faithful, in fact, that it managed to gain the attention of the series’ composer, Grant KirkNog.
The creator clarified that Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania is just one level and there are no plans to add any more. He said that he’d like to move away from big Dreams projects now, so unless he gets the opportunity to work on an official “Banjo-Threeie”, which he would be thrilled to, this is it for now. He also mentioned that, after just 24 hours, the Dreams title has received over 1000 plays and over 2 weeks of playtime. He thanked everyone who tried his game for their support. For his work on his Trip’s Voyage project, William Butkevicius was hired as a level designer by Ori and the Blind Forest developer, Moon Studios.
Back in January, Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler talked about the Banjo-Kazooie IP, saying that Microsoft has been sitting on it and doing nothing with it.He believes a really talented developer could probably make a new entry that could rival 3d Mario and could probably sell similar numbers. According to him, if Moon Studios took over development of the series, it could make the IP thrive. Having spent over a decade designing these platformer games, he believes he has proven that he knows what he’s doing in that regard. Later in July, VGC’s Andy Robinson mentioned hearing that pitches for a Banjo Kazooie revival were being listened to. He specifically heard the names of Toys for Bob and Moon Studios as potential developers that were interesting in working on a new entry.
It’s possible that William Butkevicius‘ Banjo-Kazooie Dreams project is an elaborate level design prototype for an official title based on the series. Only time will tell whether this is actually the case.
