Ken Lobb has had a fantastic career. Not only is he the co-creator of the Killer Instinct game series, a Nintendo of America alumnus, and current Creative Director of Xbox Studios, but he's also worked on some of my favourite games including Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark.
Ken has had a strong relationship with Rare throughout his career, which makes this video shared by Rare Gamer of him showing an E3 audience some of the early designs for Banjo-Kazooie back in 1997, a year before the game launched, even more exciting. The clips show a Temple Test Level; Gobi's Valley, which Ken calls 'The Sphynx Level', and an early version of Spiral Mountain with monkeys running around, and a more 'tower fortress' looking structure in the middle which you would use to get to Grunty's Lair.
Oh WOW! Take a look at this! Early Banjo-Kazooie in 1997 has Ken Lobb showing off the Temple Test level, early Spiral Mountain and Gobi's Valley! https://t.co/0gCbrVt5Eg pic.twitter.com/ZptI0CjnQt
— Rare Gamer (@Rare_Gamer) July 22, 2026
Spiral Mountain looks so different, especially without Banjo's house in the background, and it's odd to see Banjo just jumping up into the air without being on a flight pad. Still, this video was there just to showcase to gamers the potential that the game had and how it worked, and as a hardcore Banjo-Kazooie fan, I think it does pretty well!
Ken goes on to talk about the fact that the main antagonist of the game is, in fact, a giant, and not Gruntilda. Apparently, the story was supposed to be that he had stolen your girlfriend, and you had to make your way up into a castle in the clouds to rescue her. Having an evil witch that steals your cousin is a bit of a different angle, but I can't imagine Banjo-Kazooie without Gruntilda now; she's such a good villain!
Oh WOW! Take a look at this! Early Banjo-Kazooie in 1997 has Ken Lobb showing off the Temple Test level, early Spiral Mountain and Gobi's Valley! https://t.co/0gCbrVt5Eg pic.twitter.com/ZptI0CjnQt
— Rare Gamer (@Rare_Gamer) July 22, 2026
It's strange seeing a different animation when Banjo picks up a Golden Jiggy too. I love seeing what games might have been like had they gone down a different direction, a little like the Beta Pokédex designs for Pokémon Diamond and Pearl that I wrote about earlier today!
I've been replaying a lot of Banjo-Kazooie recently while testing out the M64, so it's nice to go back to the game's roots and hear Ken talking about a game that both we and the retro gaming community en masse loves so much. Gaming was so good back in the 90s, and I wish I could go back to open up new copies of these games all over again!
