As Astro Bot proved last year and Donkey Kong Bananza cemented just a few months ago, it’s never been a better time to be a fan of 3D platformers. Whether it’s indies (who have always been fighting the good fight) or triple-A studios, there’s a lot of renewed energy for cartoon mascots jumping around the place and hoovering up collectibles.
It wasn’t always like this, though. For most of the last few console generations, 3D platformers have been all too rare and mostly kept afloat by juggernauts like Mario and Sonic. There are plenty of platforming legends that are missing in action, and the biggest of the bunch is, without a doubt, Banjo-Kazooie, which has been locked in Xbox’s vault ever since Nuts and Bolts in 2008.
That big Jiggy-shaped void was somewhat filled in 2017 by Yooka-Laylee, a 3D platforming collect-a-thon from Playtonic (a studio founded by former Rare members) that echoes Banjo-Kazooie but with a new duo and some big twists on the beloved formula. Nearly a decade later (and with a 2019 side-scrolling spin-off in between), Playtonic is going back to its roots with Yooka-Replaylee, a remake of the original game that aims to address its issues and show what Yooka and Laylee are really made of.
The Origin Of Project Ukelele And Its Massive Kickstarter Campaign
“The whole team’s really excited,” Playtonic studio director Gavin Price tells me. “We’ve got a mixture of people who shipped before and people where this is their first game. And even for us who have shipped before, it’s been a long time – too long – since we last shipped a game. It comes with a lot of nerves, last-minute panic, adjustments, and trying to cram in as much as possible as well.”
In the spirit of Replaylee revisiting the original game and giving it a new lease of life, I wanted to take Price on a trip down memory lane. 2015 was the year that Playtonic formally announced Yooka-Laylee under the fitting codename Project Ukelele, and confirmed that it was going to act as a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie.
Shortly after being teased, Yooka-Laylee started its Kickstarter campaign and went on to become the fastest game at the time to reach $1 million backed, which it went on to nearly double by the end of its run. It was clear from the moment Yooka-Laylee was revealed that Rare fans still had a thirst for the classic formula that Banjo-Kazooie introduced.
Playtonic Agreed With Yooka-Laylee Criticisms
Two years later, Yooka-Laylee finally launched across several platforms, a first for the former Rare devs, and was met with a mostly mixed response. That being said, Yooka-Laylee also received its fair share of criticisms, with many complaints levied towards its massive levels and somewhat confusing progression, alongside performance and control issues.
“All the criticisms were fair,” Price admits. “They mimicked a lot of our own internally. We’ve always grown up being the biggest critics of our own games anyway, and it was such a weird perfect storm of things we were having to deal with. We’d never worked with middleware before [using existing engine tools rather than building from scratch, which saves time and money but offers less control], never done a multiplatform release, never worked with publishing partners. We were running a crowdfunding campaign, doing our biz dev accounts, legal matters popping up front and centre, physical goods and merch, all this stuff, and you’ve only got a finite amount of time and money to do everything you need to do. We didn’t disagree with any of the criticisms. We know we can do better than what we did.”
Although Price and the team were disappointed with the somewhat middling reviews of Yooka-Laylee, it didn’t stop the team from trucking on with the series. Just a few years later, Playtonic released its second game, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, which aped Donkey Kong Country’s 2D platforming but with even more twists. Price says that The Impossible Lair was a “better reflection” of what the team was capable of.
The Impossible Lair Proved What Yooka And Laylee Were Capable Of
A lot of that came from the fact that Playtonic was able to focus on one thing with as much time as it wanted to and not have to deal with all the challenges that come with a massive Kickstarter campaign.
“Before the Impossible Lair was announced, we had time to really think about what kind of features would help it stand out, what hadn’t been done in 2D platformers,” Price notes. “We had loads of cool and unique selling points for that game. The overworld, the way it was more open-world and how you could try doing the end level at any point in time. The reason for finishing levels being to get more hit points for that final encounter, all sorts of things.”
It helped because we took our time a little bit more at the concept phase and because we hadn’t announced anything publicly, all of a sudden we didn’t feel beholden to follow through with it. Whereas on the original Yooka-Laylee, we announced it as a Kickstarter two years before it’s out and before we’d even done prototyping. On the first game, we probably announced some things and thought we had to follow through on them.”
Yooka-Replaylee Comes From Playtonic’s Desire To Do The Original Game Justice
In the nearly six years since Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair released, Playtonic has been a little on the quiet side. It’s kept busy with its publishing arm Playtonic Friends (which has helped release games like Lil Gator Game, Cattle Country, and Demon Turf), but, for a while, we all had no idea what the team was cooking up for its next big release.
Alongside thinking up at least “two or three ideas” for the platforming genre that Price says the team wants to explore in the future, the next step was to go back to the beginning with Yooka-Replaylee. While remaking a game that’s less than a decade old may seem strange, the choice to revisit Yooka-Laylee came from the team wanting to prove it could do the concept justice.
“It’s because we really wanted to address a load of the criticisms from the past,” Price says. “We’ve been secretly working on all sorts of different things in the background, and when we looked at it from a logistical point of view, Yooka-Replaylee was the most feasible in order of the next announcements. It was the one that made the most sense. I think it would have been great to be able to announce one or maybe two other things before announcing Yooka-Replaylee, just so people can go, ‘Oh, you’ve been doing that’.”
The Future Of Yooka And Laylee, And How Xbox Should Approach Banjo-Kazooie
It’s now just under a month until Yooka-Replaylee launches, and it’s clear that the team hopes it’s given Yooka-Laylee the treatment it deserved back in 2017. All the work that’s gone into bringing Yooka and Laylee’s first adventure up to par seems like it’d be perfect practice for the duo’s next 3D outing, but it seems that the pair might be due for a little rest in the future.
“I don’t want to give anything away,” Price teases. “Honestly, everything we’ve done would benefit any game, no matter the IP. We’re fans of Yooka-Laylee and very proud of those characters, but when you look at what your core concept is about, you do come to a point where it becomes a decision as to what’s the right path forward for this game. If we say it’s a Yooka-Laylee game, does that limit people’s thinking? Does that immediately make people think, ‘Oh great’, or ‘It might be alright, but it’s the same as something similar before’? Sure, there will be more Yooka-Laylee games in the future, but I’m sure there’ll also be things which Yooka-Laylee just isn’t a strong fit for.”
It sounds like it might be some time yet until we see what’s next for Playtonic after Yooka-Replaylee but, even if Yooka and Laylee take a little break, Price agrees that 3D platformers are in the best place they’ve been in for a while. Of course, I couldn’t talk to someone who’s worked on Banjo-Kazooie without asking Price whether he thinks the bird and bear duo are overdue for a comeback amidst all the rumours that something is in the works.
“Why not?” Price asks. “Nintendo have got quite a few great first-party platformers, like Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Mario, so you’re spoilt for choice over there. Sony has got Astro Bot and that’s something that really shows off the system. I think Xbox would be wise to follow suit and have something which is just a game about that joy that was born in 3D platformers and just really owned that space. It’d be great to see Banjo come back – hopefully it’s a great game, because we all just want to play great games.”
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Yooka-Replaylee
Platformer 3D Platformer Adventure Open-World Systems
- Released
- 2025
- ESRB
- Everyone 10+ // Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Crude Humor
- Developer(s)
- Playtonic Games
- Publisher(s)
- Playtonic Friends
- Engine
- Unity
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
WHERE TO PLAY
DIGITAL
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