Banjo-Kazooie Spiritual Successor Yooka-Laylee Smashes Through Kickstarter Goal
In just a matter of hours after its launch, the Kickstarter campaign for the new game project, Yooka-Laylee, has already blown past its pledge goal of $270,000. The title from Playtonic games has currently received over $760,000 from over 12,600 backers and climbing. It appears the game will have no trouble reaching all of its stretch goals over the next 46 days. What is it that has people so excited about this project? It is a spiritual successor to the fan-favorite Banjo-Kazooie franchise. In addition, Playtonic games consists of original founding members of game development studio Rare, Steve Mayles and Chris Sutherland, who were behind some of Rare’s most classic titles. Those developers have separated from Rare and formed a new game studio in order to develop a new buddy-platforming adventure game, and that game is Yooka-Laylee.
What is amazing is that players spoke loud and clear after this Kickstarter campaign. The campaign just began a short time ago, and it has already blown past its goal. Clearly the enthusiasm to get a new type of game that is similar to the Banjo-Kazooie games from the people who made that title is high. In 2002, Microsoft acquired Rare for $375 million, but has done little with the developer. Fans have wanted a sequel to Conkur’s Bad Fur Day for years, only for those desires to fall on deaf ears.
Yooka-Laylee will be a 3D platform game that will be available to consoles and PC. Playtonic hopes to release the game in 2016. The game features a chameleon hero, Yooka, and his bat partner, Laylee. Yooka utilizes a tongue grapple and Laylee uses sonar blasts. Playtonic promises that the game will be filled with 3D worlds to explore with collectibles and secrets to discover.
Many veterans of Rare franchises are attached to the project. David Wise of the Donkey Kong Country series, Grant Kirkhope of Banjo-Kazooie and Steve Burke of Kameo: Elements of Power will compose the music.
The plan is to release the game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, Windows PC, Mac and Linux. In addition, you can check out some artwork and screenshots for the game provided to us by Playtonic below.