Yooka-Laylee is another Kickstarter darling that appears to have bit off a bit more than it could chew. Developed by Playtonic, a team comprised of ex-Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country members, the game was originally intended to launch in October. Playtonic’s Managing Director, Gavin Pearce, issued a statement explaining why that is no longer the case:
“We’ve made the difficult decision to lock the release of Yooka-Laylee to Q1 2017. While we felt confident we could ship the game in October as originally planned, the team has decided that it would like to add a few extra months’ polish to our schedule. Ultimately, this will allow us to release a better game to the thousands of fans who’ve supported us throughout development.”
This is the first trailer we’ve received for the game so far. Yooka-Laylee is heavily inspired by the Banjo-Kazooie, and boy can you tell when you watch the trailer. It looks great though! The graphics are crisp, platforming seems smooth, and there looks to be some fun and diverse gameplay mechanics at work.
Hopefully this title won’t suffer the same delays that it’s infamous Kickstarter brethren, Mighty No. 9, did. Doesn’t look like it though, as Pearce said and his team “lock[ed] the release” for Q1 2017. We’ll surely see more of the game next week at E3, likely in playable form, but so far so good!
