The firmly current gen remake of Yooka-Laylee – cutely dubbed Yooka-Replaylee – has been confirmed for release on consoles, with Playtonic targeting PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and “Nintendo platforms”, which surely means Nintendo Switch 2 and not the current console, or they’d just say it was for Switch. The game is also coming to PC, as previously confirmed.
We’re in a very curious spot for remakes and remasters right now, with Yooka-Replaylee a remake of a game that’s just shy of 10 years old. The game was the debut title for Playtonic Games, who kickstarted the project back in 2015, eventually releasing it in 2017.
Playtonic’s desire to return to this game instead of making a sequel is to take on various things they’ve learned in the time since and reapply them to the original. Yooka-Replaylee, then, will feature improved graphics, more dynamic worlds, new and improved challenges, new collectibles, new characters, and a bunch of quality of life improvements too – of course, the original game had a major Spit ‘n’ Polish update to make early improvements of its own.
It does look rather pretty, I must say, though I’d hope this is a stepping stone to a full 3D platformer sequel, if it proves to be popular enough. There was also the side-scrolling spin off Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.
The spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee was a love letter to the early heyday of the collectathon 3D platformer. Looking back at the original review, Jim said, “Of all the potential hurdles to snag on in creating a 3D platformers in the style of the late nineties classics, Playtonic deftly avoids the most egregious ones by far. At its very core, Yooka-Laylee succeeds in reviving a format long forgotten and does so with such vigor and passion. However, players shouldn’t expect it to reinvent the genre.”
