Yooka-Laylee gets a publisher for "boring" stuff, not funding
"Our team can now focus 100 per cent on making Yooka-Laylee."
Yooka-Laylee, Playtonic Games' spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, now has a publisher with Worms developer Team17.
That may strike some as odd since Yooka-Laylee raised over £2.09m on Kickstarter last month, but the developer explained that Team17 won't be providing any funding. Instead, it will handle the more tedious administrative affairs that come with publishing a multiplatform game.
"From the very start we said that we'd welcome only a partner that could genuinely improve the creation of our game, while respecting the independence and creative autonomy of our development team," explained Playtonic creative lead Gavin Price.
"For Playtonic, it means that our team can now focus 100 per cent on making Yooka-Laylee, without fussing over boring-but-necessary business stuff like certification, localisation and store management, while at the same time benefiting from the additional resources and vast experience of a seasoned games label," Playtonic added in a Kickstarter update.
"The partnership will allow Playtonic to build on its hugely successful Kickstarter campaign - the biggest ever for a UK game studio - with additional resources designed to benefit development and add value to both existing Kickstarter backers and new fans," Team17 explained.
While not developed by Banjo-Kazooie studio Rare, Playtonic is made up of several ex-Rare staffers and its naming convention is an obvious nod to the beloved 64-bit platformer. Only instead of a bear named Banjo partnering with a bird named Kazooie, we get a chameleon named Yooka partnering with a bat named Laylee. Personally, I'm more of a bat man than a bird man (though Michael Keaton makes a convincing argument for the latter).
Those who missed out on the Yooka-Laylee Kickstarter can still back it and receive the same rewards via PayPal pledges. This option will shut down soon though on Monday, 3rd August at 5pm UK time.
Yooka-Laylee has an estimated launch of October 2016 on PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC, Mac and Linux.
