Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is the next game in the series, taking place eight years after the events on Banjo-Tooie. It is currently in development and is expected to be released on November 11, 2008. It was announced at Microsoft's X06 in 2006 at Barcelona, Spain. Before the name was announced, the game was commonly called Banjo-Threeie.

Plot
Set eight years after Banjo-Tooie, the plot of the game involves Banjo and Gruntilda competing to determine the true owner of Spiral Mountain. Banjo wishes to preserve his home while Gruntilda hatches an urban development scheme to replace the vegetated area with towers and malls. A new character named Lord of Games (also known as LOG) attempts to settle the conflict between the two by devising a series of worlds and challenges. LOG transports the other characters to Showdown Town, his headquarters, and starts the contest. The winner would be set to own Spiral Mountain; the loser must endure eternal hardship at LOG's video game factory. While Banjo and Kazooie seek to win by completing the challenges, Grunty uses her powers and abilities to try and stop the duo. An army of mechanical Gruntbots also assist the witch in her goal.

Gameplay
The game is not a traditional third-person action and platform game like the previous entries in the series, but instead utilizes vehicles to transport Banjo and Kazooie around the levels. According to Mayles about 20 percent of the game retains traditional platforming elements. There are however no conventional "moves" for Banjo and Kazooie to use.

Vehicles

Vehicles play a prominent role in the game. The player can build them from over 1,600 different components available, such as body panels, engines, wheels, wings, propellers, fuel and weapons. It is also specified that vehicle presets from these parts would be available.[5] "Banjoprints" of these machines and their statistics have been revealed. They include the Banjo 4x4, Banjo Boat, Banjo Copter and Banjo Plane. Gruntilda also operates a vehicle called the Grunty Coco-Carrier.[7] The vehicles can be built in many shapes, as demonstrated in a video where one was constructed to resemble an 8-bit Mario sprite that was later blasted apart.

Items

The original teaser trailer showed several gameplay elements from the previous games that will be included in the upcoming game, including music notes, honeycombs, and puzzle pieces ("Jiggys"). The Jiggys are among several golden objects that are collected to progress in the Banjo-Kazooie games and will once again be used in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. In an edition of Scribes, Rare said that "the player will determine the difficulty level by how they approach the Jiggy tasks", hinting at what the game would offer.[8] It was later specified that the challenge level of these tasks depends on how the player builds the vehicles. Other items include honeycomb pieces, which are used to refill Banjo and Kazooie's health gauges in the games. Musical notes can be collected in Banjo-Kazooie to unlock note doors, and in Banjo-Tooie were used to unlock new moves for Banjo and Kazooie. For Nuts & Bolts it has been stated that the notes will be used as a currency to buy parts for the vehicles, with gold, silver, and copper notes worth different amounts. A new item, tentatively called "Mumbo's magic wrench" was also revealed. It plays a significant role, as it is used to both build and move objects via a yellow beam fired from the device. The wrench is also stated to be used by Kazooie as a primary weapon for on-foot gameplay, sending enemies magic and electric bolts, and other not yet revealed features.

Abilities

Various abilities from Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie will not be at Banjo and Kazooie's disposal for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. This approach was first mentioned in the December 20 of Rare's Scribes column, which stated, "Banjo and Kazooie haven't got many of the abilities that they used in previous games".[8] The ability introduced in Banjo-Tooie to split up Banjo and Kazooie as separate playable characters will be unavailable in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. A previous Scribes mentioned that they "thought about using two different controllers" to account for the new moves and all the old moves as well, but that a simpler system had been used for the game. It was eventually revealed that the approach involves using vehicles instead of the previous attack moves. According to Rare, the in-game explanation is that most of the older abilities were forgotten after eight years of not using them and LOG did not allow the duo to remember them. The only move you can still do are the Grip Grab, Swim (Banjo only), Climb, and Single Jump. The Magic Wrench is used as a new attack, for the platforming elements of the game.

The player can disembark from a vehicle and explore the environment in a manner similar to that of the previous games. In a screenshot, Banjo and Kazooie are seen walking on a tightrope crossing a river.

Multiplayer

The idea of multiplayer options was first discussed at the Rare Witch Project, where Mayles said that there would be multiplayer capability in the game unlike that found in Banjo-Tooie. He also noted that there would not be any first-person shooter sections in the traditional action-adventure game. It was later revealed that multiplayer will be purely vehicle-based where players will be able to take their custom built vehicles to Xbox Live and compete in online races and activities.[6] An announcement stated that the game features a co-operative mode and offline multiplayer options.

Features

 * Multiplayer has been confirmed to be a part of the new game. But it has been stated that it will not be the same as Banjo-Tooie's multiplayer. It was later revealed that multiplayer would focus on vehicle gameplay such as races and other challenges.
 * Vehicles are expected to be a major part of the game. There have been many screenshots released displaying images including blueprints. Some vehicles are:
 * Banjo 4x4 (4 wheel drive)
 * Banjo plane
 * Grunty Coco-Carrier
 * Banjo Copter
 * Banjo Boat
 * Minimaps and a world map have been included in many screenshots and videos.

Returning Characters
A "small" number of characters have been announced.
 * Banjo
 * Kazooie
 * Gruntilda
 * Mumbo Jumbo
 * Humba Wumba
 * Jolly Roger
 * Bottles
 * King Jingaling
 * Blubber
 * Jinjos
 * Weldar
 * Clanker
 * Loggo
 * Mr. Patch
 * "The snowman from Freezeezy Peak"
 * The Spiral Mountain vegetables
 * Klungo
 * Jamjars
 * Mr. Fit
 * Boggy
 * Golden Goliath
 * George Ice Cube
 * Mildred Ice Cube
 * Gobi
 * Dingpot
 * Cheato

New Characters

 * Pikelet
 * Trophy Thomas
 * Lord of the Games (LOG)
 * Piddles

Worlds & Levels
Many levels have been introduced in BK:N&B, many new, while some old levels from previous games being redesigned in a whole new way.

Rare has announced that there will be 5 new levels (not including Showdown Town and Spiral Mountain) featuring 15 challenges. The new levels will now be inside artificially created spheres that will appear to be a dome while inside the world. Like the other console games, the levels can be accessed from the hub world and themed music will play when neared. Each world features several "acts", where the characters have been moved around and have new challenges to give. Each world has its own intro that plays when you enter the world for the first time.
 * Showdown Town - The new hub world.
 * Nutty Acres - An artificial grassland level, on a tropical island (includes a coconut farm and a volcano).
 * Logbox 720 - A level that resembles the inside of a video game console (obviously the Xbox 360).
 * Banjo Land - A museum of levels, people, and scenery from the first 2 games.
 * Jiggoseum - A level taking place in a large colosseum that is themed around sports.
 * Terrarium - A space-themed level, taking place in a series of domes filled with overgrown plants.

Easter Eggs
During the game, you will see a lot of things that are references to other Rare games, for example:
 * A frog pinata from Viva Pinata appears in the game. It appears as a vehicle part named "Papery Pal", and L.O.G. turns Banjo into it once.
 * In the aforementioned Papery Pal's description, Mumbo says that, "Trouble in Paradise is good game. You should buy tomorrow." Trouble in Paradise is the 2nd Viva Pinata game.
 * Grabbed by the Ghoulies CDs are in the BanjoLand world.
 * When you're building a vehicle with a tray, it contains a Viva Pinata frog, 5 Grabbed by The Ghoulies video games, and a skeleton arm from GBTG.
 * When you first arrive at Klungo's Arcade, Klungo tells you about his game, and claims he is a big star, and he is "bigger star than Massster Chef...", a reference to Master Chief from Halo.
 * There is the Killer Instinct 3 CDs in LOGBOX 720 world.
 * At one point, Banjo mentions that he once was in a race with "a genie and a giant pig", a reference to Diddy Kong Racing (the genie is Taj and the pig is Wizpig)

Trailers
The Teaser and Official trailers. UaKtkOWu5fQ OzPigWbB2kI

For more videos on Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, please see the Nuts & Bolts playlist on our YouTube channel here.

Screenshots
16 screenshots were scheduled to be shown at Microsoft's annual Gamer's Day but were leaked early and are shown below. The last five are "banjoprints" (blueprints) for new vehicles.