Our trip around the world of gaming via the medium of Google Street View continues.
In the Nintendo years, Rare was a notoriously secretive company – which made the developer all the more fascinating to its fervent fans. Under the ownership of Microsoft, that mystique has faded somewhat – blame the games, blame the fans, blame the openness of the web.
The company hasn’t completely lost its desire to hide from the outside world though. This is the entrance to their HQ near Twycross in the Warwickshire countryside. The only sign that it’s Rare is the letter R from the company’s logo in the brickwork by the gate. Now that, is classy.
It’s not Rare’s only location any more though. A studio in Birmingham – specifically Fazeley Studios in Digbeth, which needless to say is also on Street View – was opened last year. The company even posted a tour of its new pad on YouTube.
Wouldn’t have happened in my day: I remember when it was an event for a magazine to be invited in, and we’d be treated to a couple of photos from inside Rare.