Team17 has announced the second of their two next titles, and it’s one most of their fans have been asking for.
Following the dark, foreboding and incredibly gory tone set by Blasphemous, we now move onto much more light-hearted territory. Yooka and Laylee are back for their next adventure, this time in a different perspective and what appears to be a spinoff title: Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Check out the reveal trailer below.
The game features a marked difference from Yooka-Laylee, in that this one plays like more of a 2.5D runner/platformer, with some 3D overworld elements. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair stars Yooka the chameleon and Laylee the bat, this time in an adventure that takes them to rescue Queen Phoebee’s Royal Beettalion Guard. On the way, they take on the hardest challenge Capital B has ever put in front of them, including facing the Impossible Lair.
Looking at the trailer, it’s very noticeable that developer Playtonic has scaled back the world which was featured in Yooka-Laylee. The gameplay reminds me of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which is great, but the 3D overworld looks a bit tedious for my taste. There’s looking to be a nice chunk of variety when it comes to levels at least, plus secrets and collectibles lurking in every corner.
Yooka-Laylee started out with a Kickstarter campaign that was widely successfully, earning £2,090,104 against its £175,000 goal. This success is due to the fact that the team developing it previously worked on the Donkey Kong Country titles, as well as one of the greatest 3D platformers of all time, Rare’s Banjo Kazooie.
That said, the release was a rough one, plagued by middling reviews and launch issues. I played the game as well, and although I could see where most of the complaints were coming from, it’s still quite fun for a 3D platformer; it just so happened that it was compared so much to its spiritual predecessor, Banjo Kazooie, which is kind of unfair. Banjo is essentially one of the best games of all time, and no amount of nostalgia can capture the magic it has, whatever packaging it might come in.
Let’s just hope that Playtonic can reach better success with this outing, and play to its strengths very wisely; that is to say, Grant Kirkhope’s music.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair will be released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC later this year.
