Earlier this morning Yooka-Laylee, the spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, went up on Kickstarter with a goal of $270,041. That goal has not only been reached mere hours later, but the campaign is well on its way to even higher thresholds, having earned over $485,000 as of writing this article. With 46 days left to generate new funds, the sky is certainly the limit on Yooka-Laylee’s Kickstarter campaign. The team planned ahead for this, setting a few stretch goals right off the bat. They’ve already hit a few and are looking likely to top even more. Expect more stretch goals and other reward tiers to pop up later on.
Yooka-Laylee bills itself as the successor to fan-favorite 3D platformer Banjo-Kazooie because many of the team that worked on that venerable series left Rare behind to work on this title. “Yooka-Laylee is an all-new 3D platformer from the creative talent behind the Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country games. We’ve come together to form Playtonic Games and create a spiritual successor to our most cherished work from the past!”
The game looks to bring back the 3D platformer, a genre that has had little attention paid to it as of late. It’s two main characters work together much like Banjo and Kazooie did in the N64 classics. “Yooka (the green bloke with no pants) and Laylee (the wisecracking lady-bat with the big nose) were conceptualised from the ground up for stellar platforming gameplay, created by the same character artist behind the rebooted Donkey Kong family and legendary N64 heroes Banjo and Kazooie. Using an arsenal of special moves like Yooka’s tongue grapple and Laylee’s tactical sonar blast, players will explore – and expand – gorgeous 3D worlds drawn up by esteemed environment artist Steven Hurst (Banjo-Kazooie series, Viva Pinata) and through skill discover the plethora of delicious collectibles hidden within.”
Yooka-Laylee is currently slated for release on October of 2016. The team is looking to release the game on PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC, Linux, and Mac platforms, though some may come after the others.
