Yooka-Laylee, the Kickstarted spiritual sequel to Rareware’s Banjo-Kazooie, is now getting a sequel of its own. And it seems developer Playtonic Games is invested in the original’s formula, because Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a total riff on Rareware’s classic Donkey Kong Country series.
Yooka, a cartoon lizard, teams up with Laylee, a bat, to bust their way through colorful, challenging, 2.5D platforming goodness, just like the iconic Donkey & Diddy Kong duo on the SNES. There’s even a top-down 3D overworld that recalls Donkey Kong Country 3—you can’t say that Playtonic haven’t done their homework.
The plot according to Playtonic runs like this: “Capital B has created a Hivemind device and used it to enslave the toughest bees in the Royal Stingdom—the Royal Beettalion Guard!” Seems like the classic Rareware punning tradition is alive and well.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair will be released for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC sometime this year. Let’s hope that this game is more warmly received than the last.
Watch the reveal trailer for Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair below.