With a little over two months left before release, Playtonic Games announced that they completed development on Yooka-Laylee and have officially gone gold.
The impressive milestone comes at the end of what would soon be a two year development cycle after the game was successfully backed on Kickstarter in 2015. The game ended its fan-funded campaign with over $3.2 million USD collected, making it one of the highest funded games Kickstarter has hosted. The original campaign goal was a mere $260,000.
“We couldn’t have reached this moment without the incredible support of our backers, fans, family and friends across the games industry,” stated Platonic Games in an official update on their website. “Thanks again for your unwavering enthusiasm for our studio. We hope you enjoy Yooka-Laylee when it releases on April 11!”
Yooka-Laylee aims to be the spiritual successor to the fan-favorite Banjo-Kazooie series. The game is set to being back the long lost genre of 3D platforming and collectathons, sporting similar characters, themes, and visuals to classic Rare franchises. Playtonic Games itself was formed by former Rare employees and continues to bring them over, including Justin Cook, the former Viva Pinata designer who was revealed to be joining the team in today’s announcement.
Despite Rare releasing games primarily on Nintendo consoles, Playtonic Games will have Yooka-Laylee available on wide variety of platforms. With the recent unveiling of the Nintendo Switch, Playtonic Games has announced that Yooka-Laylee will also be released on the upcoming system, and backers can change their desired platform by following this guide. A Wii U version was also planned but was cancelled shortly after the Nintendo Switch was announced. Those who were affected by the change can request a refund.
Yooka-Laylee is set to release on Apr. 11, 2017 on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows, Mac, Linux, and Nintendo Switch.
