A handful of veterans from legendary UK developer Rare have formed their own studio to create a spiritual successor to platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country.

Playtonic games currently consists of six developers, who between them put in 108 years at Rare where they helmed franchises such as the aforementioned Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country, as well as Viva Piñata.

“We’ve got the bloke who programmed Donkey Kong Country, the character designer behind Banjo and Kazooie, and the artist who made your console fit to burst with lavish environments across a decade’s worth of adventure games,” reads Playtonic’s official site.

“We're now on a mission to bring you the video game stars of the future that are inspired by our past!”

The group’s first game is codenamed Project Ukulele, which it hopes will be a worthy spiritual successor to “those fondly remembered platforming adventures we built in the past.”

It promises to listen to the public’s views on the game’s direction, and intends to grow to 15 staff and possibly work with a publisher to bring the game to life.

"There's a history of working with Nintendo so we'd naturally love to see our game on a Nintendo platform,” wrote Playtonic.

“If people tell us to make Wii U our target console platform then we've got the flexibility to do that."

It also hinted that the game would come to other consoles, as well as Steam Early Access.