Banjo-Kazooie-esque 3D platformer Yooka-Laylee goes gold

31 Jan, 2017

Playtonic Games has confirmed that their maiden game Yooka-Laylee has gone gold and is on track for its April release. Here’s what to expect from it.

A mere 21 months after its successful Kickstarter campaign, Yooka-Laylee has gone gold. This means that development on the game has ceased and the game is ready to be played in its final, release-day form. Of course, unless you can jump platforms and sneak into Playtonic’s offices (wouldn’t recommend it), you’ll have to wait until April 11 to get your hands on the game.

Yooka-Laylee follows a chameleon and a bat as they try and stop the baddies from absorbing the world’s literature. The tone is light and playful, not unlike other classic 3D platformers Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country. The similarity should not be surprising, considering Playtonic Games comprises the talent responsible for those classics. They even got the composers from Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country on board.

The gameplay involves collecting a whole bunch of stuff while exploring magical books. Yooka and Laylee might be separate characters, but you get control them as a unit, using abilities like sonar blasting and tongue whipping to get ahead and stop the machinations of Capital B and Dr Quack. Apart from singleplayer, the game also offers a co-op mode. There’s also a competitive multiplayer arcade mode, apart from the story.

Yooka-Laylee will release on PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. You can get it from Steam, GOG.com, PlayStation Store or Microsoft Store. The game will also see a physical release on PS4 and Xbox One. Team17, veteran developers of the Worms series, will be handling publishing duties for Yooka-Laylee across all platforms.

Although the game was previously also expected to come to the Wii U, that version has been scrapped in favour of a Switch version. More details on the Switch version will come later this year, Playtonic has promised.