Tuning up the Banjo – Yooka-Replaylee Announcement

When Kickstarter as a platform kicked off, many indie developers heavily utilized the platform. Many do to this day, but Playtonic was one of the earliest developers. The Banjo-Kazooie-inspired Yooka-Laylee was released to a mostly positive reception but the title had issues. Camera control quarks and taking the wrong lessons from Banjo-Tooie resulted in a collectaton that was more busy work than fun for some. The developers are revisiting the original with Yooka-Replaylee and are setting out to fix the issues.

Yooka-Replaylee Announcement

Playtonic revealed this during the lead-up to the Summer Games Fest, showing redone visuals and gameplay refinements over the original. Playtonic has stated the following on the Steam page;

Yooka-Replaylee is the definitive remastered and enhanced version of the 3D indie platforming collectathon darling, Yooka-Laylee (2017), developed by key creative talent behind the Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country games. New remixed challenges and old favourites await as you embark to explore the huge, beautiful open worlds as the lovable buddy-duo Yooka (the green one) and Laylee (the purple one) once more, all while backed by a beautiful orchestral soundtrack. Did we mention there is a map now? A shiny new currency? And tons of customisation options? The favourite buddy duo has never moved, looked, or sounded better!

Features for Yooka-Replaylee

The key additions for this remaster are the quality of life additions. The original Yooka-Laylee had no proper map system, meaning players could get lost in the ever-expanding levels. But thanks to the addition of a proper map system, that shouldn’t be an issue now.

In addition, new abilities via new Tonics (game modifiers) will be added to offer additional options. The features section also mentions a new currency, but neither the Steam listing nor the trailer explains what they do.

Considering Playtonic’s connection to various indie projects as a publisher, maybe cosmetics based on Demons Turf could be bought for Yooka and Laylee to wear.

Closing Thoughts

While I never finished the original, I did enjoy my time with Yooka-Laylee. It scratched that Banjo-Kazooie itch very well, even if the game leaned harder on its sequel than the original for inspiration.

Having a ‘bigger is better’ mentality to level design, resulted in a large, sometimes empty world to explore. And with Yooka and Laylee having only so much mobility, it made getting from point A to B longer than it should’ve been.

With this remaster, Playtonic has the chance to use the lessons learned from their first solo project, following leaving behind Rare and Microsoft, to make something very special.

Stay tuned for more updates as Yooka-Replaylee gets closer to release!