Reports of Rare rebooting its mysterious new IP Everwild were "more definite and a little more extreme" than the reality of its development, according to Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty.
Speaking to Kinda Funny in a recent podcast, Booty stressed that Rare is "known for creating new IP and creating worlds" and that this isn't an easy or linear process. "And when you look at it from the outside, when you hear words like reset, and maybe restructure, I'll just say that those are probably a little more definite and a little more extreme than what really happens as a game comes to life," he said.
Quoting NBA Jam developer Mark Trammell, Booty described games as projects "made a thousand small decisions at a time. Every day you're making hundreds of small decisions and at the end of however long you work on the game, they all add up."
"I think that's where the Everwild team is right now, because they're just trying to make sure that they've got something special," he continued. "We've shown a glimpse of a world, you've seen the art style that the team has got. But we want to get it right, and I think any game that you went and were able to spend a behind-the-scenes year with [...] there are some days you're just terrified. What are they making? What is this? How is this ever gonna come together? And then you balance that out, a day later, when this build comes together, and you're like 'Wow, this is magic'. So I'll just say that we'll share more on Everwild when the team has got some cool stuff to show. We know there's excitement and anticipation for it and we don't want to keep things hidden for too long, but it's just natural that a team's gonna go through some of that process."
Back in June, following Everwild's notable absence at the latest Xbox E3 showcase, reports indicated Rare had internally rebooted the game and brought in a new creative director. This had reportedly pushed the game's current launch target back to 2023, but Rare and Microsoft never even set a release date to begin with, so even if it is true, this can't really be called a delay.
Everwild has mostly shown art at this stage, but Rare followed its reveal with an in-depth dive on its fantastical creatures and naturalist themes.
