Playtonic is a team composed of former Rare staffers, the minds behind several well-loved platformers from the 90s like Banjo-Kazooie. Yooka-Laylee takes direct inspiration from those games, inspiration which divided some reviewers for its refusal to adapt to modern gameplay mechanics (although we quite liked it in our review).
It sees you control animal duo Yooka (the chameleon) and Laylee (the bat) as you try to stop the corporate greed of Capital B and collect a host of Pagies and other items across five expansive worlds.
Playtonic just recently announced what many Switch-owning retro fans have been waiting several months for: Yooka-Laylee will release on the Nintendo Switch December 14th. It’ll be available for pre-order on the Switch eShop starting December 7th and is digital-only for now. In addition to the game itself, Switch owners get a host of updates and additional features.
The game released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam this past April, but it was delayed for the Switch due to optimization issues. However, Playtonic says those issues have all been resolved with hard work from their developers, Nintendo and Unity, and promises that the game will run smoothly in docked and handheld modes.
The Switch version comes with all the updates and tweaks already rolled out for PS4, XB1, and Steam in addition to some extras, including a custom achievement system and single-control options for the game’s eight mini-games.
Are you planning on picking this one up, or have you already played it? Let us know down in the comments!
