A new trailer for Yooka-Laylee has been posted on their Kickstarter page as well as a short video showing off one of the levels, along with some important news.

The Wii U version has been scrapped due to unforeseen technical difficulties, in favor of a Nintendo Switch version of the game.
The game will launch on April 11, 2017 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac and Linux.

Also, the Toybox demo previously only accessible to Kickstarter backers is now available to anyone who pre-orders the game.

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[Foxi4]

@Hells Malice @Jonna I'm well-aware that it's the same people, I'm also aware of the fact that it's been over a decade. You failed to grasp my point entirely, the point being that Banjo was made by the right people at the right time and I feel that this is made by the right people who haven't moved on and reeks of desperation to travel back to their glamorous past. It might work, who knows, but it's a carbon copy still. It's not Banjo, except it is, which is copying by definition. Instead of making a brand-new game, they're giving an old franchise a ride on the necromancy train and giving it some professional mortician-style make-up to avoid getting sued. Each to their own, I guess - I personally prefer original ideas.

 

[Xzi]

I personally prefer original ideas.

I agree with that in general, but I also feel developers would be doing us a great service by remaking a lot of N64/PS1 games now that we're past the era when controls were iffy and polygons were giant and indistinct. It's a case by case thing, and it helps that nobody else has created a satisfactory Banjo-Kazooie clone up to this point.

 

[Foxi4]

I agree with that in general, but I also feel developers would be doing us a great service by remaking a lot of N64/PS1 games now that we're past the era when controls were iffy and polygons were giant and indistinct. It's a case by case thing, and it helps that nobody else has created a satisfactory Banjo-Kazooie clone up to this point.

Remakes are a double-edged sword. When the stretch of time between the original and the remake is substantial, you're not just trying to make a good video game, you're also trying to vault over a high bar of nostalgia. Remakes are very rarely considered better than the originals, or even as good as the originals - I can count those cases on one hand - REMake, MGS:TS, FF Remakes on the DS and that's about it. On the other end of the spectrum you have games that try too hard and just end up failing to meet expectations and fall into obscurity and shame. Just make a sequel - make new, interesting content rather than dragging a dead corpse across mud. It's a double-whammy - you get to play a brand-new game with brand-new content rather than replay an old game with better visuals.

 

[Xzi]

Remakes are a double-edged sword. When the stretch of time between the original and the remake is substantial, you're not just trying to make a good video game, you're also trying to vault over a high bar of nostalgia. Remakes are very rarely considered better than the originals, or even as good as the originals - I can count those cases on one hand - REMake, MGS:TS, FF Remakes on the DS and that's about it. On the other end of the spectrum you have games that try too hard and just end up failing to meet expectations and fall into obscurity and shame. Just make a sequel - make new, interesting content rather than dragging a dead corpse across mud. It's a double-whammy - you get to play a brand-new game with brand-new content rather than replay an old game with better visuals.

Well sure, but this game isn't even a remake in the traditional sense. "Spiritual successor" is the buzzphrase these days I believe. I haven't seen anything from the game footage that screams blatantly ripped from Banjo-Kazooie. I saw Shovel Knight, though, and that was pretty cool.

By not being attached to the previous IP they can improve any glaring flaws with the B-K formula while keeping what worked.

 

[Zense]

Well sure, but this game isn't even a remake in the traditional sense. "Spiritual successor" is the buzzphrase these days I believe. I haven't seen anything from the game footage that screams blatantly ripped from Banjo-Kazooie. I saw Shovel Knight, though, and that was pretty cool.

By not being attached to the previous IP they can improve any glaring flaws with the B-K formula while keeping what worked.

I agree and my biggest hope is to see what improvements we are able to make to the classics with the leap in technology. The way I see this trend of 3d platformers coming back is that we've moved on from reviving the 2d platformers (which started with Braid, more or less) to the next gen of 3d classics. So I don't understand how people can call this a desperate attempt, because seeing how the revival of 2d platformers went incredibly well, I can only immagine the same for 3d platformers, given that we're able to improve on them enough to feel we've come a long way since then.

 

[Foxi4]

Well sure, but this game isn't even a remake in the traditional sense. "Spiritual successor" is the buzzphrase these days I believe. I haven't seen anything from the game footage that screams blatantly ripped from Banjo-Kazooie. I saw Shovel Knight, though, and that was pretty cool.

By not being attached to the previous IP they can improve any glaring flaws with the B-K formula while keeping what worked.

If they can pull it off, all the power to them, really. It's what the fans want. I'm just jaded and cynical because I've seen this play out before, and it rarely plays out well.

 

[Jonna]

@Hells Malice @Jonna I'm well-aware that it's the same people, I'm also aware of the fact that it's been over a decade. You failed to grasp my point entirely, the point being that Banjo was made by the right people at the right time and I feel that this is made by the right people who haven't moved on and reeks of desperation to travel back to their glamorous past. It might work, who knows, but it's a carbon copy still. It's not Banjo, except it is, which is copying by definition. Instead of making a brand-new game, they're giving an old franchise a ride on the necromancy train and giving it some professional mortician-style make-up to avoid getting sued. Each to their own, I guess - I personally prefer original ideas.

I understand your sentiment, actually. There's a slight feeling far in the back of my mind that this could be something too late. I love the people involved, and this is one of few games I'm actually mainly optimistic about, so I'll remain hopeful.

 

[Xzi]

I understand your sentiment, actually. There's a slight feeling far in the back of my mind that this could be something too late. I love the people involved, and this is one of few games I'm actually mainly optimistic about, so I'll remain hopeful.

Yeah I'd be more pessimistic about it if all the footage and screenshots weren't fantastic, game seems to ooze charm and fun. It looks like they're using Unity to me, which would mean some pretty good optimization all around.

 

[MasterofSidesteps]

I don't own a U but I can see why its owners are pissed, they paid the most towards the kickstarter plus it was said to be the "definitive" version, they got screwed over.

 

[Xzi]

I don't own a U but I can see why its owners are pissed, they paid the most towards the kickstarter plus it was said to be the "definitive" version, they got screwed over.

Do we know for certain that WiiU people paid the most toward the kickstarter? And they knew it was coming to several more powerful platforms as well, they should've known it wasn't going to be the definitive version.

 

[MasterofSidesteps]

Do we know for certain that WiiU people paid the most toward the kickstarter? And they knew it was coming to several more powerful platforms as well, they should've known it wasn't going to be the definitive version.

They said themselves that most of the donations went towards the U version and that the U version was the one Playtonic was personally working on (the X1 and PS4 versions would get ported by T17.

 

[Xzi]

They said themselves that most of the donations went towards the U version and that the U version was the one Playtonic was personally working on (the X1 and PS4 versions would get ported by T17.

I see. Well I'm sure they're getting the option of a refund or a different version of the game now.

 

[MasterofSidesteps]

I see. Well I'm sure they're getting the option of a refund or a different version of the game now.

I hear they're doing refunds which is good but anyone who really wanted to play it but doesn't have the other systems, a decent pc nor will be able to buy the switch got the short end of the stick. But I'm honestly not sure what else PG could have done under these circumstances

 

[Deleted member 340473]

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[Irastris]

Sure would be nice if they'd give a more detailed reason for why they can't continue bringing the game to the Wii U, instead of just saying "there were technical difficulties".
If Nintendo could make Skyward Sword work on the Wii, then Playtonic should sure as hell have been able to make Yooka-Laylee work on the Wii U.

I'm especially disappointed that I'll be needing to grab a refund from when I backed this game, because my secondhand Wii U is the only thing I have that would have been capable of running it.

 

[Xzi]

What dya mean? This is not Crysis 4 nor Elder Scrolls, it's just an HD Banjo Kazooie.

That's true, but let's not pretend a modern-day Banjo-Kazooie wouldn't be taxing on older hardware. Remember how wide-open the level design of B-K is? How you could basically go anywhere that you could see? Now imagine about 1000x the number of polygons in every square inch of environment, character models, graphical effects, etc. Then you put it all together from a vantage point where you can see everything from a level on one screen. WiiU was probably hitting 5 FPS half the time.

If they had scaled it down considerably and made it look ugly as all hell then maybe it would've reached a playable frame rate, but Nintendo probably jumped in and told them it wasn't worth the time since they were stopping manufacturing of WiiU.

 

[Jayro]

Welp, they lost my purchase. Thanks for being "that dev" who stiffed the Wii U, just like every other dev did. Wouldn't be surprised if the Switch devs jump ship too, just like they did for the Wii U.

 

[Xzi]

Welp, they lost my purchase. Thanks for being "that dev" who stiffed the Wii U, just like every other dev did. Wouldn't be surprised if the Switch devs jump ship too, just like they did for the Wii U.

There's just no way Switch doesn't get more third-party dev attention given it has support for OpenGL/Vulkan/Nvidia API, and those are just what have been confirmed so far. Porting will be way easier and that's also why From was able to get DS3 running on it so easy.

 

[Jonna]

Welp, they lost my purchase. Thanks for being "that dev" who stiffed the Wii U, just like every other dev did. Wouldn't be surprised if the Switch devs jump ship too, just like they did for the Wii U.

By "that dev," do you mean Nintendo? Because they stiffed the Wii U themselves, so developers logically don't have much choice, unless they want to back develop for a dying console that even the manufacturer and producer aren't supporting anymore.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Welp, they lost my purchase. Thanks for being "that dev" who stiffed the Wii U, just like every other dev did. Wouldn't be surprised if the Switch devs jump ship too, just like they did for the Wii U.

this is going to be on the switch