It seems like Rare is in the mood to share information on future releases these days. A recent post over on the Xbox.com forums has gamers ask questions about the upcoming Banjo-Threeie from Rare. The studio was kind enough to take the time and shed some new light on the game.

QUESTION 1
Will the next Banjo-Kazooie game take place after the events of Banjo-Tooie?
YES – But a lot has changed since 2000. What have Banjo and Grunty been doing for all these years?

QUESTION 2
Is there any multiplayer component planned?
YES – Not like Banjo-Tooie’s though. No FPS sections, either. I think there are enough FPS games out there!

QUESTION 3
Is this new Jiggy system gonna stray too far away from the old one?
YES and NO – The ‘not 100′ Jiggies are still used to progress through the game, but the way they are obtained and used is different. Also expect changes to the Notes and Jinjos (oops, I think I may have answered a couple more questions there!)

QUESTION 4
A lot has changed since the original Banjo-Kazooie came out, which was almost ten years ago. Games today, in my opinion anyway, seem to stray a lot from core, simple gameplay elements and focus too much on other things. One thing I loved about the original game is that you guys got the story out of the way pretty much first thing. Witch is ugly, Witch needs to remove ugly, Witch steals cute little Bear-girl, game starts. After that, it was pretty much 100% game until you got to the end and knocked the old hag off her own tower. It was simple, and it set the player up with what they needed, a reason, to play through the game.

Not that story isn’t important, but when 40% of a game these days is spent watching rather than playing, it makes me wonder where the “game” part of “video game” went

Basically, the original game relied on much of its own charm. The lushness of the worlds, the characters, and the rich array of abilities and puzzles. So… my question is: Does this remain?
YES – Don’t worry, we may be introducing something different to the Banjo universe but this remains a Banjo game.

QUESTION 5
You said the gameplay had evolved some time ago and it would not be like it was before. Have we seen this new style of gameplay in another game?
NO (Well, I don’t think so. Let’s just say you certainly won’t have seen it in a Banjo game!)

QUESTION 6
Will there be any old levels remade in the game?
YES – But probably not how you expect!

BONUS QUESTION
Will Grunty bring back her loveable rhyming again in this game?
Her silly comments will be a pain, yes the witch will rhyme again.