Rare today announced that they will be opening up a second game studio located in the Digbeth district of Birmingham, England. The offices, opening in April 2010, will focus mainly on quality assurance testing and other usability tests. This is the first time that the Twycross-based game developer has ventured outside it's hometown.

"The old way of making games just doesn't work anymore, we need to be much more flexible in how we staff a team and setting up new facility in Digbeth will help us to do this," said Mark Betteridge, Rare's studio developer.

"It's central location and the nature of other businesses in the area make it a very appealing environment in which to work. While we are committed to keeping our headquarters in Twycross, we feel a second studio in a more urban location will be appealing to some staff."

Digbeth is centrally located to many large British universities in the area, and as Joystiq points out, a massive amount of pubs. This new location will be a huge recruitment boom for the company, which is likely facing new challenges with their involvement in Microsoft's Project Natal, slated for release this holiday.