Until just now, I hadn’t thought enough about Yooka-Laylee, developer Playtonic’s attempt to recapture the 3D collectathon platformer magic of the Banjo-Kazooie games, to realise that it’s been a solid seven years since that game came out.
Which, you might argue, is not quite long enough to call a newly-released version a “remaster,” but that’s what we’re doing with a just-announced new version of the game. Also, it’s called Yooka-Replaylee, which is either incredible or atrocious depending on your vibe.
The studio is calling this the “definitive remastered and enhanced version” of the game, and it’ll feature more than just updated visuals. It improves on a lot of the shortcomings of the original version with the addition of things like a proper map, new and remixed challenges, a new currency, customisations, a remixed soundtrack and heaps more.
Perhaps more excitingly, it sounds like the game’s animations and camera are getting a proper overhaul, with Yooka and Laylee’s move set being made “more fluid” along with new camera controls. It might be 7 years too late but it sounds like this could be the version of Yooka-Laylee that the world deserved the first time around.
Yooka-Replaylee is coming to PC and “consoles” at an unspecified time, and you can check out the reveal trailer below:
We gave Yooka-Laylee a 6/10 in our original review, with Shannon saying, “Nostalgia will hit hard within the first few hours, but once this fades, you’ll realise that Yooka-Laylee is never able to live up to the brilliance that was Banjo-Kazooie. You’ll get some enjoyment from the open-world platforming aspects of the game, but the unlikable characters, coupled with a clunky camera among other redundant game mechanics will more than likely ruin the experience for you. I don’t doubt that even the biggest of Banjo-Kazooie fans will be left wondering what could have been.”
