Today, Steve Mayles, the famous character designer from Rare showed off an unused character that was going to be in the planned Banjo X. The characters name is Mr. Termite! Steve included a small animation of the unused termite:
To fill a gap in #BanjoKazooie history, here's unused Mr Termite, reimagined around '05 for project 'Banjo X' pic.twitter.com/djRaDIqBHH
— Steve Mayles (@WinkySteve) July 30, 2015
Steve mentions that Banjo X was planned around 2005. Banjo X was first discovered a few years ago as an executable on an old original Xbox dev kit. A move list was found on the file which included such moves as: Springy Shoes, Rocket Sneakers, Metal Feathers, Aviator Goggles, Invisibility Chocolates, Big Feathers, Bag of Eggs and Diamond Beak.
You can read more about Banjo X on PtoPOnline: http://ptoponline.com/?p=1224
Love it when things like this are uncovered. This is the first I’ve heard of the BanjoX prototype, but I like the sound of it. Seems much closer to the roots of the original games than what we got with N&B.
I’m still hoping that Rare revisits Banjo someday.