Playtonic Games Partners With Team 17 to Publish Yooka-Laylee

This is the sort of teamup that people write wistful forum posts about — much of the heart behind Rare together with the humor and imagination of the creators of Worms Armageddon. And it’s real! Playtonic Games have confirmed that Team 17 will be publishing Yooka-Laylee. In an announcement published both to Kickstarter and on the Playtonic Games website, director Gavin Price discussed some of the specifics of the deal.

From the start we said we’d welcome a partner that could genuinely improve the creation of Yooka-Laylee, but only if that relationship maintained our core principles and independence. Team 17 impressed us from day one with both its passion for the game (in fact, a lot of their staff are backers!) and its vast experience of collaborating with indie devs.

To clarify, this isn’t a traditional publisher deal: Team 17 understands what we want to achieve as a studio and has created a unique partnership with us. Team 17 will improve Yooka-Laylee in a myriad of ways, not least in expanded localisation (more languages!), QA testing, certification and store management – Basically, all the stuff that game creators don’t want to worry about.

Playtonic remains completely independent and owns everything we do – thanks to you – and we’re really, really proud to be able to say that our game is 100% funded via Kickstarter.

Remaining entirely funded by Kickstarter sets Yooka-Laylee apart from other recent high-profile Kickstarters like Bloodstained and Red Ash: The Indelible Legend, both of whom are receiving significant portions of their funding from publishers. It’s a good-faith move from a group of developers who seem genuinely passionate about reviving the buddy platformer genre. While Playtonic were unwilling to confirm a physical release of their game, Team 17’s track record at least makes it a possibility that’s once again in reach.