It’s been a while since we last heard from Team17 and Playtonic Games, but now they’re back with a new trailer for their upcoming title Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, which showcases some really creative stuff in terms of gameplay.
This newest trailer is dubbed Alternate Level States, and it features just that – in Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, the duo can discover ways to radically alter the game’s different levels. It’s a really cool mechanic that I wished was implemented in games more, instead of just expanding the size of the game map endlessly without a lot of content to back it. In any case, check out the trailer below to see how Playtonic does it.
To start off, the trailer features a level called Gasping Glade, which is just this run of the mill 2D platforming level. After several interactions in the game’s 3D overworld, however, Yooka and Laylee manage to open a wall that unleashes a torrent of water down the level, which unlocks its altered state, ‘Gasping Glade – Grown.’ It’s a pretty neat mechanic overall, and if you think it’s a simple palette swap, you’d be wrong, as the altered state features some new mechanics to discover and employ.
The next one featured a level called Buzzsaw Falls, which has the titular falls plus a very hazardous environment. Yooka and Laylee alter this level as well, by interacting with a cloud to freeze the falls’ water source. The result is a level called ‘Buzzsaw Falls – Frozen,’ which offers a drastically different experience from the first.
This altered state mechanic has boosted the game’s overall length by quite a bit, now boasting 40 levels. The implementation is pretty good as well, with the levels’ changes being dynamic and deliberate as a result of Yooka and Laylee’s actions. It adds a significant amount of content to Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair’s already bursting collect-a-thon offering, and that is a very welcome thing for fans who felt left down by its predecessor Yooka-Laylee.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair was last featured at Nintendo’s Treehouse: Live at E3 2019, the details of which you can check out here.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair will be released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC in Q4 2019.