Fans of the Nintendo 64 platformer Banjo-Kazooie received some excellent news this week, as a spiritual successor to the game, titled Yooka-Laylee, has been announced. The project, previously titled Project Ukelele, is being developed by Playtonic Games, a group of former staffers from Rare, who previously worked on Banjo.
The appetite for the game is legit, as a Kickstarter campaign for the project is now underway and reached its initial ask of $270,000 (or £175,000) in 40 minutes and has eclipsed $1,870,000 (£1,196,085) contributed thus far (with 44 days remaining). It’s on track to be one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever.
Here’s information on the game from the Kickstarter page:
“Our new heroes, 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.”
The campaign page also features some actual gameplay footage:
Yooka-Laylee looks like a return to fun platform games, which made Rare’s original slate of products so successful. The makers of the new game feature numerous key players from the N64 Rare era, including Steve Mayles (who created Banjo-Kazooie) and Chris Sutherland (lead engineer and voice of the titular characters), among many others.
Both Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie were widely successful and acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. There have been sequels to those games on the Gameboy Advanced and Xbox 360, but those weren’t nearly as fun or successful as the two versions for N64.
Rare has fallen off the map quite a bit since its purchase by Microsoft in 2002. The company really hit its stride during its heyday in the late 90’s/early 2000’s with releases such as Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong 64 and GoldenEye 007, among many other great titles. Recently, they’ve struggled making Kinect Games that nobody wants to play.
Yooka-Laylee looks like nostalgic gaming reinvented — a dose of plain and simple fun, which is refreshing in this hyper-violent video game day and age. Will it be as good as the original Banjo-Kazooie? That’s a high bar to cross, but the right people seem to be involved, and if it’s anything close than this is going to be one exciting game.
