Creating Yooka-Replaylee – Our Vision for a Truly Modern Mascot Platformer

About ten years ago, a group of former Rare employees with decades of combined experience working on some of the most renowned platformers banded together to form Playtonic with the shared vision to resurrect the 3D platformer. Yooka-Laylee was born out of this vision and now almost a decade and a studio with over 60 employees later, we have refined that vision and morphed it with our learnings working across other projects and feedback from our community to bring you Yooka-Replaylee, the definitive version of the 2017’s indie 3D mascot platformer darling. Staring the buddy duo of Yooka, the green one, and Laylee, the purple one, the epic open world adventure is coming to Xbox Series X|S!

The makings of a great mascot platformer start with no less than, well, memorable mascots, and Yooka-Replaylee has got just that in the forms of the heroic lime-green lizard Yooka and his wisecracking, now fluffy, purple companion Laylee the bat.

Together they go against the comically villainous Capital B and meet a colourful and varied cast of characters along the way, some familiar to fans of the IP and some new ones like Coinelius the piggy bank and Mark the appropriately named bookmark who gives you directions throughout the game. Even some of the enemies you encounter have undergone a full makeover. The bees are fluffy now! Every character has been given a fresh coat of paint and smoother animations to go along with it.

While story of Yooka-Replaylee begins in Yooka and Laylee’s home of Shipwreck Creek and swiftly moves inside the lair of the vicious capital B called the Hivory Towers, a vast majority of the game takes place inside Grand Tomes, each with its unique overarching setting and atmosphere.

Entering the world of Yooka-Replaylee, you will quickly discover that the worlds are now more populated with things to do, enemies with all new attacks to encounter, and collectibles to collect than before. Every single challenge has been improved and some entirely new challenges have been added.

An entirely new currency called Q.U.I.D.S has been added for players to collect and spend on a store run by a franchise favourite character. You no longer have to worry about getting lost in the world either thanks to the brand world map and the aforementioned Mark the bookmark giving you guidance and acting as a handy fast-travel system within the levels. You will also be able to track your progress through a brand-new challenge tracker.

What is a platformer if it does not feel good to play? We have completely redone Yooka and Laylee’s move set and the player camera in Yooka-Replaylee to create a more responsive experience. You can now intuitively chain your moves together, which is something you were not able to do before.

In one of our more surprising decisions, we removed the double jump from the game. Instead, your regular jump now matches the height of the old double jump. This is all to ensure a better gameplay flow for the players. Swim and fly controls have also been redone and to the players’ relief, moves now cost less power to use!

Our colourful cast of characters are not the only ones who have undergone a makeover. Yooka-Replaylee has undergone a full visual upgrade covering every single art asset in the game along with a complete UI and HUD refresh. As you run through the grass at Shipwreck Creek or the snow in Glitterglaze Glacier, the world around you feels truly alive and breathing, creating a fully immersive platforming experience.

And I cannot finish a segment talking about immersion without highlighting the beautifully arranged orchestral score, based on the original score composed by Grant Kirkhope and David Wise, we worked together with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra to produce.

The founders of Playtonic had a vision for a new mascot platformer that would breathe new life into the 3D platforming genre. The very first Yooka-Laylee (2017) is to thank for the position the studio is in now, doubling as a development studio and a publisher, and for the fact that I get to work at Playtonic.

As we approach our tenth anniversary with more resources, more employees with fresh ideas, valuable community feedback and lessons learned working across other secret projects, we think it is only appropriate to go back to that original adventure and celebrate a whole decade of fun and love for platforming by delivering the true definitive version of Yooka and Laylee’s first adventure. And what better way to kickstart an exciting new beginning for the franchise than this? We cannot wait for you to get your hands on Yooka-Replaylee when it launches on Xbox Series X|S. I am also delighted to announce that owners of the original Yooka-Laylee on Xbox will be entitled to an owner’s discount at launch!