Rare’s Everwild team includes Viva Pinata artist, Sonic Racing director

Rare’s Everwild team includes the artist behind Viva Pinata, a Total War writer and the creative director of a Sonic racing game.

The game – a “truly original” new IP, according to Rare – was announced at Microsoft’s X019 event in London on Thursday, where it was confirmed that the title is still in pre-production.

Louise O’Connor, the company veteran who has worked on animation for Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, was announced as Everwild’s executive producer at the event.

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But further analysis of the project’s leadership team reveals that Simon Woodroffe is the game’s creative director. Woodroffe’s last game was Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, which he performed the same role for.

Rare’s studio art director, Ryan Stevenson, is helming the visual direction for the project, having previously led art for Sea of Thieves and Viva Pinata.

Pete Campbell, a lead programmer for Sea of Thieves and the Kinect Sports series, is Everwild’s technical director, while writer and designer Kate Watson has been brought in as senior narrative designer. Watson was previously a writer on the Total War series at Creative Assembly.

VGC was told the Everwild team is approaching 50 people, although Rare has ambitions to grow it to a much larger size. Currently the studio has more than 25 job openings listed on its website.

Everwild, which VGC understands is an ambitious third-person adventure title with god game elements, is set in a “natural and magical world,” according to its developer.

“While Everwild is still early in development, we are very excited about the unique potential of the game we are creating,” studio head Craig Duncan said in a prepared statement on Thursday.

“The Everwild team is focused on building an experience that allows for new ways to play in a natural and magical world,” he added.

“Everwild will give you memorable, engaging and meaningful experiences for players everywhere to share. We cannot wait to share more with you in the future.”

The Everwild team will get “everything they need” to build the game, Duncan added, while emphasising that the studio is still “fully committed” to shared world game Sea of Thieves.