Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
2008 video game / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a 2008 platform game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. Set eight years after Banjo-Tooie (2000), Nuts & Bolts follows the bear-and-bird duo Banjo and Kazooie as they compete with the witch Gruntilda for ownership of their home. Although Nuts & Bolts retains the structure of previous Banjo-Kazooie games—collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces to progress—it shifts the focus from exploration to vehicle construction. The player designs vehicles, including automobiles, boats, and aeroplanes, and uses them to complete challenges across various worlds. In multiplayer modes, players can compete or share their vehicles over Xbox Live.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts | |
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Developer(s) | Rare |
Publisher(s) | Microsoft Game Studios |
Designer(s) | Gregg Mayles |
Writer(s) | Leigh Loveday |
Composer(s) |
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Series | Banjo-Kazooie |
Platform(s) | Xbox 360 |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Platform, vehicle construction |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Nuts & Bolts entered production following the completion of Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003) and was developed by the same team behind the Nintendo 64 Banjo games, led by designer Gregg Mayles. It began as a remake of Banjo-Kazooie (1998) but was repurposed as an original game. Rare sought a broad audience and, wanting to evolve the platform genre, introduced vehicular gameplay to take advantage of the Havok physics engine. The customisation elements originated from the Rare co-founder Tim Stamper's suggestion for a game similar to connecting Lego bricks. The soundtrack was composed by Robin Beanland, Dave Clynick, and Grant Kirkhope in his final work for Rare.
Nuts & Bolts was released in November 2008. It drew criticism from fans for departing from the Banjo-Kazooie gameplay, but received generally positive reviews. Critics considered the vehicle editor robust and praised the visuals, music, and creativity, though they found some challenges tedious, and some questioned the new direction. Nuts & Bolts was a commercial disappointment, selling 140,000 copies in the United States by the end of 2008. Afterwards, Microsoft laid off staff at Rare and restructured them as a Kinect and Avatar-focused developer.
In the decade following its release, Nuts & Bolts's reputation improved, though it remains divisive. Some journalists reappraised it as the best Banjo-Kazooie game, while others felt it failed to provide the series' gameplay. Nonetheless, its focus on construction and player freedom has been considered ahead of its time, predating popular games such as Minecraft (2011), Fallout 4 (2015), and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023). Nuts & Bolts was among the 30 games included in Rare's 30th anniversary compilation Rare Replay (2015) and one of the first added to the Xbox One's catalogue of backward-compatible Xbox 360 games. It remains the most recent Banjo-Kazooie game, despite fan interest in a continuation.