Revealed as part of today’s Guerrilla Collective presentation, Playtonic’s Yooka-Laylee is returning for an encore on “PC and consoles” with Yooka-Replaylee, a glow-up for the 2017 indie original that brought back the Banjo spirit to the 3D platforming genre.
As you can see from the reveal trailer above, this remaster isn’t just a spit-polish in the visuals department, but will feature numerous gameplay tweaks and additions, including a new world map, improvements to existing challenges, refinements to the duo’s moveset and the camera, and Dave Wise and Grant Kirkhope’s music getting the full orchestral score treatment.
Playtonic says that this remaster marks “the culmination of almost 10 years of Playtonic experience along with an exciting new beginning for our favourite buddy-duo.”
“Yooka-Replaylee is the result of the growth of the company, the things we have learned while working on other projects as well as the feedback we have taken on board since the original release.”
Let’s take a look at the full list of features as per the PR blurb, plus a few screens:
Key Features:
• MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN EVER – With an art and animations overhaul and enhanced performance and resolution, the favourite buddy duo has never looked or moved better.
• NEW AND IMPROVED CHALLENGES – Improvements to existing in-game challenges and many entirely new challenges to discover and undertake!
• NEW COLLECTIBLE CURRENCY – Capital B’s inept minions have dropped their hard-earned coins all over the place. Collect the official currency of the Hivory Towers to spend on video games’ most beloved sentient vending machine.
• NAVIGATING THE WORLD – Now you can get lost in the game, not in the world! A brand-new world map and challenges tracker helps you know where you are and what needs to be done. Hooray!
• VENDI HAS PLENTY TO OFFER – Tonics are back with all new flavours! With the option to equip multiple game-changing enhancements, you can truly customise your playstyle. And as if that wasn’t enough, Vendi has new lines of merchandise for the modern fashionable adventurer.
• REVISED CONTROLS & CAMERA – A new tweaked move set allows you to combine moves more fluidly while the new camera controls makes framing the action a breeze.
• A DREAMY ORCHESTRAL SOUNDTRACK – The original score from famed video game composers Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie) and David Wise (Donkey Kong Country) returns but as a beautifully arranged orchestral score. Now seriously, clean out those ears.
There’s no word on an exact date just yet, and that nebulous “PC and consoles” can always be tricksy. Is Yooka-Replaylee coming to Switch? We reached out and Playtonic gave us the following statement:
“We have nothing more to announce at this time, stay tuned for more updates.”
So watch this space, then. Honestly, we can’t imagine it won’t be on Switch, given the genre and the team’s historical ties to Nintendo consoles, not to mention the 130 million+ Switch owners out there. Perhaps we’re looking at a launch title for the Switch successor (imagine Trowzer getting his tongue around that), but either way Playtonic is keeping shtum about platforms for the time being.
While not perfect, we very much enjoyed the original game and its trademark humour, which came courtesy of the ex-Rare staff that make up the Playtonic team. Not only does it look like this remaster will sand off the original’s rough edges and, hopefully, bring it up to the quality of its sequel, but the dev’s mention of “an exciting new beginning” suggests there may be plans afoot for something beyond an enhanced version of an existing game.
Playtonic is hosting a Q&A session on its YouTube channel on Tuesday 11th June, so we’ll likely learn more about the game and what the team has in store for the future.
Looking forward to revisiting Hivory Towers? Skipped the original but like the look of the enhancements here? Or are you jonesing for some New-ka-Laylee? Let us know below.
