Banjo-Kazooie director Gregg Mayles leaves Rare after 36 years as he announces exit on X

Gregg Mayles, the director behind Banjo-Kazooie, has finally bid farewell to Rare after an impressive 36 years at the British studio.

Mayles, who joined Rare in 1989 straight out of high school, announced his exit on X in poetic alliteration, titled “A Rather Resplendent Rewarding Rare Ramble,” fittingly referencing the rhyming dialogue that defined Banjo-Kazooie.

The poem basically recounts his journey, from his early days ignoring banking for game design to contributing to hits like Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, Diddy Kong Racing, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Piñata, and Sea of Thieves, while expressing gratitude to fans and colleagues.

He ended the post with the line “Now time to start new tales to tell, Farewell to Rare, he waves, farewell!”

Over his tenure, Mayles worked on 30 games, helping shape Rare’s golden era during the Nintendo 64 heyday. He contributed to classics such as the 1998 platformer Banjo-Kazooie, which sold over 3.6 million copies worldwide and spawned sequels like Banjo-Tooie in 2000.

He also contributed to many other beloved titles, including the 1994 beat ‘em up Battletoads, the Donkey Kong series starting with Donkey Kong Country in 1994, the 2003 Xbox horror-comedy Grabbed by the Ghoulies, the 2006 life sim Viva Pinata, and most recently, directed the live-service hit pirate adventure multiplayer game, Sea of Thieves, which launched in 2018 and has since amassed more than 40 million players across all platforms.

This announcement comes amid a turbulent and dark period for Rare, following Microsoft’s acquisition of the studio in 2002 for $375 million, after which it shifted focus from Nintendo to Xbox. While Sea of Thieves stands as Rare’s most successful release, the studio had nonetheless faced many hiccups throughout the years, like 2013's Kinect Sports.

Notable here is ambitious open-world adventure Everwild, whose development was being overseen by Gregg Mayles himself. The game was announced in 2019 and had been in development for over five years. 

However, Microsoft canceled Everwild in July 2025 as part of broader layoffs, affecting up to 9000 employees company-wide. This also included cuts at Rare and the scrapping of The Initiative's Perfect Dark Reboot, another project tied to Rare’s legacy.

Sources report that the cancellation of Everwild, after nearly a decade of troubled development and multiple reboots, likely influenced Mayles' decision to leave Rare. However, he didn’t specify the reason in his post on X.