Fans of 1990s hit Banjo-Kazooie will have to wait a little bit longer for its spiritual sequel. Yooka-Laylee will now arrive in Q1 next year for PC, Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One, developer Playtonic says.
The studio also detailed how the development partnership with Team17 is working. The firm is internally handling the Wii U and PC versions of the game, while Team17 is working on porting the title to Xbox One and PS4.
“After a lot of soul searching and listening to what our fans and backers were telling us, we’ve made the difficult decision to lock the release of Yooka-Laylee to Q1 2017,” said Playtonic MD Gavin Price.
“While we felt confident we could ship the game in October as originally planned, the team has decided that it would like to add a few extra months’ polish to our schedule. Ultimately, this will allow us to release a better game to the thousands of fans who’ve supported us throughout development.
“We’re sure some will be disappointed by the prospect of a few extra months’ wait, however the Playtonic team is confident that we’ve made the right decision for the game and that you’ll be pleased with the results when the game arrives early next year.”
When asked why the firm was internally handling Wii U over the other platforms, writer Andy Robinson said: “We naturally have so many backers who opted for Wii U. Because of the size of the team, we couldn’t take on all the consoles. You can imagine from a developer stand-point, that porting from PC to PS4 and Xbox One is slightly more straightforward than porting to Wii U.
“I also think it feels right playing it on a Nintendo system to some people.
“But the other versions will be fantastic as well.”
Technical art director Mark Stevenson added: “We wanted to make sure that Wii U gets the right attention. There is a lot of nostalgia around Banjo, Banjo heralds from Rare’s Nintendo’s days, and we are all massive Nintendo fans as well.”
Yooka-Laylee raised a (at the time) record-breaking £2.1m on Kickstarter last year. The studio is made up of former developers from famed UK studio Rare.
