Steve Mayles had been an artist at Rare Ltd before moving on to accept a position as Character Art Director at Playtonic. Having worked on games ranging from Battletoads & Double Dragon to Donkey Kong Country to Kinect Sports Rivals, it is safe to say that he has contributed a lot to Rare, even if some of it was for projects that were ultimately canceled. Fortunately, not all of Mayles’ work on these projects will be lost to history as he has recently shared some character models from the canceled Banjo-Kazooie remake. It is unknown why this remake was canceled but check out this adorable animation of Conga:
BanjoX Conga's chest is starting to hurt a bit. Well, he has been doing this for a decade now, waiting for the bear! pic.twitter.com/fAE39QOUAq
— Steve Mayles (@WinkySteve) September 6, 2015
Here’s another one:
Another unseen character from '05 Project Banjo X. Conga was to return! pic.twitter.com/jqHJxq0erT
— Steve Mayles (@WinkySteve) August 2, 2015
If these images seem a bit dated to you that is because they are. It appears that the remake was in development somewhere around 2004 and 2005 and was known simply as Banjo X and the game may have had some sort of co-op mode. A bit sad that this wonderfully animated model of Mr. Termite will never see the light of day in an actual game:
To fill a gap in #BanjoKazooie history, here's unused Mr Termite, reimagined around '05 for project 'Banjo X' pic.twitter.com/djRaDIqBHH
— Steve Mayles (@WinkySteve) July 30, 2015
And who could forget Mumbo:
Mumbo, circa 2004 thinks it's great the #rarereplay got to number 1 https://t.co/h261okdfD5
— Ed Bryan (@mingellasfella) August 10, 2015
Will we ever seen a remake of Banjo Kazooie? Who knows? I think Banjo deserves a new adventure on Xbox One and even if this particular game was canceled one can hope that the character hasn’t been forgotten.
