Ranking All Of Microsoft's First-Party Studios Worst To Best
4. Rare
Notable Games: GoldenEye 64, Banjo Kazooie, Sea Of Thieves
In Development: Battletoads, Perfect Dark 3 (rumoured)
The tale of Rare is one of two eras; the Nintendo era and the Microsoft era. The former is remembered quite fondly as they partnered with the company in the mid-’90s and created several landmark titles in quick succession.
Then in 2002, Microsoft outright bought them. Sadly, the games just didn’t have the same spark (e.g. Grabbed by the Ghoulies) and then they attempted to return to iconic titles with disappointing results (e,g. Perfect Dark Zero). It was a sad state of affairs as the once-great giant had fallen - and was then regulated to creating Kinect titles for years to come.
Recent times have seen the company rejuvenated slightly, with Rare Replay reminding us of why they were great in the first place, and Sea of Thieves being their first proper big-budget release in years. Whilst reactions to the latter have been mixed, it showcased that there's still a pulse in the studio and Microsoft is willing to encourage it going forward.
Regardless, they're going to have to put in some hard work to win back gamers, but this ranking is also influenced by their legacy and the truck-load of incredible liscences they hold on to (and could start to use again).