Rare became a prominent second-party developer for Nintendo, which came to own a large minority stake in the company, with the release of Donkey Kong Country (1994).

Several former Rare employees have formed their own companies, such as Free Radical Design, best known for producing the TimeSplitters series, and Playtonic Games, best known for Yooka-Laylee (2017).

[1] With successful results, the company decided to sell the Ultimate brand to U.S. Gold, and ceased game development for the ZX Spectrum in the following year.

Tradewest also gave their own Double Dragon licence to Rare, allowing them to develop a crossover game between the two franchises.

[11] Rare worked on licensed properties such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Hollywood Squares, and ports including Marble Madness, Narc, and Sid Meier's Pirates!.

[12] The huge library of games made large profits, but none became a critical success for the company while less creativity and innovation were shown in them.

Rare limited their releases to some Battletoads games and decided to invest their significant NES profit in purchasing expensive Silicon Graphics workstations to make three-dimensional models.

[13] Donkey Kong Country sold over nine million copies worldwide, making it the third best-selling game in the SNES library.

With major project leads departing, a new team took over its development and diminished the role of lighting in the game, making it a more straightforward first-person shooter.

In 1999, Nintendo signed an agreement with Disney, and assigned Rare to develop several racing and adventure games featuring Mickey Mouse.

Conker's Bad Fur Day, unlike Banjo-Kazooie, was intended for a mature audience, and features violence, profanity and scatological humour.

[29] Game development costs gradually increased,[7][30] and Nintendo did not provide Rare with more capital nor did they purchase the company's remaining stake.

Originally intended as a free-roaming game, it was significantly streamlined in design and concept to attract a larger, more casual audience.

[8] The game's commercial performance was a disappointment, however, and some Rare team members questioned Microsoft Studios' large marketing budget for Gears of War and its relative neglect of Viva Piñata.

Made by the core team that developed the first Banjo-Kazooie,[51] Nuts & Bolts received significant criticism from players due to its focus on vehicle construction rather than traditional platforming.

[57] In March 2011, Scott Henson announced that Craig Duncan, who had worked on Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and the Colin McRae Rally series, was hired as senior studio director.

[66] On 10 February 2015, a group of former Rare employees announced the formation of a new studio, Playtonic Games, and planned a "spiritual successor" to the Banjo-Kazooie franchise titled Yooka-Laylee, which was released on 11 April 2017 with mixed reviews.

[80] Rare would also reconnect with Nintendo in 2019 through the addition of Banjo & Kazooie as playable characters in the crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros.

[52] The Stamper brothers gave the team considerable creative freedom, although they would intervene if a product was technically flawed or under-performing.

According to Star Fox Adventures lead engineer Phil Tossell, conditions became more stressful after an "imperceptible" start, and the culture of the two companies began clashing.

He noted that Rare employees were attempting to "recreate the glory years", but their skills had become outdated and were no longer "applicable in today's market".

[65] Unlike other software developers, Rare acquired a reputation for secrecy; the approach to their office buildings, in Manor Park near Twycross, was monitored by cameras.

[87][95][96] Rare's secrecy was criticised by Hardcore Gamer's Alex Carlson, as they thought that it made them "disconnected", and prompted them to develop games that "their fans don't want".

[97] After Martin Hollis left Rare, he joined Nintendo before founding his own company Zoonami, releasing Zendoku, Go!

[98] Several Perfect Dark team members, including David Doak and Steve Ellis, founded Free Radical Design and created the TimeSplitters series.

[99][100][101] Deep Silver briefly reestablished Free Radical Design from 2021 to 2023, with original founding members Steve Ellis and David Doak heading up the studio.

[102] Other former Free Radical and Rare staff formed Crash Labs, a studio specialising in developing iOS games.

[103] Chris Seavor, director of Conker's Bad Fur Day, founded the Gory Detail studio along with Rare employee Shawn Pile.

[35] The company is best known for its platform games, which include the Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, and Conker series, and for its Nintendo 64 first-person shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark.

[citation needed] In 2018, Rare released Sea of Thieves, a pirate-themed open world sandbox game for Xbox One and Windows 10.