Yooka-Laylee is a 2017 platform game created by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. The game was developed by former employees from Rare, and it is inspired by the Banjo-Kazooie series. The story follows Yooka, a chameleon, and Laylee, a bat, as they work together to recover a magical book from a harmful company.
After years of planning, Playtonic Games started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the game. The campaign received a lot of attention and raised more than £2 million. The game was released on Linux, macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in April 2017. It later came out for Nintendo Switch in December 2017 and Amazon Luna in October 2020.
Yooka-Laylee received mixed reviews. Some critics believed the game successfully honored older platform games, while others felt it relied too much on nostalgia and had technical issues. Most reviewers agreed the game captured the style of earlier games but noted problems with its design and gameplay.
A spin-off game called Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair was released on October 8, 2019. A remake titled Yooka-Replaylee was released on October 9, 2025.
Gameplay
Yooka-Laylee is a platform game played from a third-person view, meaning players see the characters from the side, not from inside them. The gameplay is similar to games in the Banjo-Kazooie and Chameleon Twist series. Players control two characters, Yooka, a male chameleon, and Laylee, a female bat, who work together to explore environments, collect items, solve puzzles, and defeat enemies. The characters explore worlds inside magical books and complete challenges to collect "Pagies," which are golden book pages used as currency. Pagies can be used to unlock new worlds or expand already unlocked ones. Yooka and Laylee share one health meter, but unlike similar games, they have unlimited lives. If they lose all health or fall into a bottomless pit, they will restart at a checkpoint.
Yooka and Laylee can learn abilities such as "sonar blasting," "tongue whipping," "sky soaring," and temporary powers like fire breath by eating berries. They can also use a "fart bubble" to breathe underwater. These abilities use a power meter filled by collecting butterflies, which can also restore health. Players earn abilities by collecting enough quills to buy them from Trowzer. Collectibles called Mollycools are given to Dr. Puzz, an octopus scientist, to unlock transformations that grant new abilities. "Play Tonics," which are items that change or improve abilities, are purchased from Vendi, a living vending machine. Levels also include Ghost Writers, collectible characters that offer challenges like catching or fighting them, and Play Tokens, which are used to play secret arcade games hosted by a low-polygon tyrannosaurus rex named Rextro Sixtyfourus. The game includes "quiz show challenges," similar to those in the Banjo-Kazooie series. A character named Kartos, a sentient mine cart, allows "mine cart" sequences, similar to those in Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong 64.
The game includes a local cooperative multiplayer mode for two players. There is also a 2–4 player local adversarial multiplayer mode with eight minigames. The game features an optional "64-bit" mode that mimics the visual style of Nintendo 64 games.
Plot
At the Hivory Towers corporation, CEO Capital B and his assistant Dr. Quack use a machine to collect all the books in the world. Their goal is to find a special magical book called the "One Book," which they hope will allow them to change the universe. Meanwhile, on Shipwreck Creek, Yooka and Laylee, who possess the One Book, watch as the book is pulled into Hivory Towers. The pages of the book escape during this process. Yooka and Laylee then travel to Hivory Towers to retrieve the book.
While exploring Hivory Towers, Yooka and Laylee visit five different worlds to gather 100 pieces of the One Book called Pagies. After collecting all 100 Pagies, they confront and defeat Capital B in his office. There, they discover that Hivory Towers is part of a larger organization named V.I.L.E., and that Dr. Quack is actually Capital B's supervisor. At this moment, a thinking cannon named Blasto, who is a friend of Yooka and Laylee, accidentally fires a cannonball at Capital B and Dr. Quack. The cannonball hits them, knocking them onto the One Book, where they become trapped inside. Later, Yooka, Laylee, and their friends celebrate their success with a party.
Development
In September 2012, a group of former Rare employees tried to make a new game inspired by Banjo-Kazooie. They used the Twitter handle Mingy Jongo, which was the name of a boss from the game Banjo-Tooie. Grant Kirkhope, a composer who worked at Rare, helped with the project. In December 2014, the Twitter account was no longer used, and Kirkhope said the project was paused indefinitely in a Reddit Q&A. However, in August 2015, a company called Playtonic Games was created by the same group, and the Twitter account was revived under the company’s name. Playtonic announced a new game called Yooka-Laylee, which was previously known as Project Ukulele. At the start, six people worked on the game. To fund the project, the team used Kickstarter to raise £175,000. The campaign was very successful, reaching its goal in 40 minutes and later breaking the record for the fastest game to reach US$1,000,000 in pledges. The campaign raised £2.1 million from over 80,000 supporters.
Yooka-Laylee was designed to bring back and update the "collectathon" style of 3D platform games from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Players collect items to progress through the game. Some collectibles used 2D images. The game included free downloadable content for Kickstarter supporters after its release. The game is available in English, with translations in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Wil Overton, a former artist at Rare, created the game’s instruction manual.
The game was made using the Unity engine and other software tools. The team said this helped them fix problems and work more efficiently. The name "Yooka-Laylee" came from ideas based on the word "ukulele," including meanings from Hawaiian. Yooka-Laylee’s 3D environments were created by Steven Hurst, who also worked on Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Piñata. The characters were designed by Kevin Bayliss, who worked on Donkey Kong Country, and Ed Bryan, who worked on Banjo-Kazooie. Originally, the character art director imagined Yooka as a lion, but changed him to a chameleon and Laylee to a bat because their abilities fit the gameplay. The characters had no voices to let players choose their own. The game’s perk system was inspired by games outside the 3D platform genre. Animations were used to improve character movement. Grant Kirkhope, along with former Rare composers David Wise and Steve Burke, created the game’s music. A soundtrack CD was given to some Kickstarter supporters. The game’s music quality was better because of more memory available compared to Banjo-Kazooie. The title character from the game Shovel Knight appeared as a non-playable character, voiced by Sean Velasco. This was announced by Yacht Club Games after Yooka’s character trailer was released in September 2016.
In March 2017, Jon "JonTron" Jafari, who was to voice a character in Yooka-Laylee, had his voiceovers removed from the game after making racist comments during a Twitch livestream. Jafari said he understood Playtonic’s decision and wished them success.
After Yooka-Laylee was released, Playtonic announced updates to improve the game’s camera and controls, as well as add new features and other improvements.
Release
The game is published by Team17, who also helped Playtonic Games with translations, making sure the game meets standards, checking for errors, marketing, and other tasks not related to development. The game's funding project was announced on Kickstarter in May 2015. It met its first goal of £175,000 in thirty-eight minutes and its highest goal of £1 million in 21 hours, becoming the fastest video game on Kickstarter to reach US$1 million at that time. Playtonic Games later thanked supporters and promised future updates. The campaign added four extra goals, all of which were achieved. Supporters who gave specific amounts received special rewards tied to the game's release. It is now the most-funded UK video game on Kickstarter, surpassing the previous record held by Elite: Dangerous, with £2,090,104 raised. The success of the campaign allowed the game to be released on consoles in April 2017.
In October 2016, Playtonic Games confirmed the game would be sold in stores and digitally, offering backers who received the digital version the option to get a physical copy. In December, Playtonic Games announced the game would be available digitally and in stores worldwide on April 11, 2017, for all platforms. They also said the Wii U version was canceled due to unexpected technical problems. Backers who supported the Wii U version could choose a refund or move their pledge to another platform for free. Playtonic Games said more details about the Nintendo Switch version would be shared in January 2017. It was later explained that the decision to cancel the Wii U version was not because of the console's poor sales but because some developers were hesitant. In February, Playtonic Games said they had no plans for a physical version of Yooka-Laylee on the Nintendo Switch at the time. Limited Run Games later announced physical copies for the Nintendo Switch in North America, starting in August 2018. Playtonic Games also announced a special Collector's Edition for December 2017, which included a statue, concept art, a key chain, and pins.
The release of Yooka-Laylee was delayed to early 2017 to allow the team more time to improve the game. Playtonic Games focused on developing the PC and Wii U versions, giving the latter more attention because of higher demand from Kickstarter backers and nostalgia for older games. Team17 developed the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. On April 1, 2017, Playtonic Games released The Yooka-Laylee Rap!, which was an extra goal on Kickstarter. The song honors the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64, with Kirkhope returning as the composer.
Reception
Yooka-Laylee received "mixed or average" reviews on the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, while it received "generally favourable" reviews on the Nintendo Switch, according to Metacritic, a website that collects reviews. Another review site, OpenCritic, said the game received fair approval, with 57% of critics recommending it. Most critics agreed that the game reminded players of classic 3D platformers, but they were not sure if this was a good thing. Some thought the game felt old-fashioned, while others believed it was a success. Kickstarter supporters were happy with the final game, even though they were upset about delays in the pre-release demo and the cancellation of the Wii U version. Many backers received Steam codes instead of Switch codes. The game debuted at number 6 on the U.K. all-formats chart and number 2 on the Australian sales chart in its first week. By November 24, 2018, the game had sold over 1 million copies.
The game won the "Game in a Small Studio" award at The Independent Game Developers' Association Awards. It was also nominated for "Action and Adventure Game." It received other nominations for "New Games IP," "Animation," and "Visual Design" at the 2017 Develop Awards, and for "Game, Original Family" at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards.
Many critics praised Yooka-Laylee as a good follow-up to the original Banjo-Kazooie games. Steven Bogos of The Escapist called it "Banjo-Threeie" and said it brought the fun of older games into modern times. James Kozanitis of GameRevolution said the game improved on classic gameplay, especially the importance of collectibles. Chris Carter of Destructoid liked the large levels and colorful design but said the old-style designs might not appeal to everyone. Marty Sliva of IGN said the game showed that the 3D platformer genre still had value. He praised the level design, music, and characters but criticized the camera controls and said the game was not as good as games from the 1990s. Kallie Plagge of GameSpot liked the collectibles and non-linear structure but criticized the camera and some confusing level designs.
Colm Ahern was more negative, saying the game relied too much on nostalgia and had problems like a confusing camera, unclear puzzles, and loud voices. He said the game did not know if it was for children or adults. He also said the levels after the first one were repetitive and hard to follow. Chelsea Stark of Polygon said the game was a reminder that some memories should stay in the past. She called the combat boring and criticized the controls. GamesRadar said the missions were repetitive, and David Houghton said some power-ups, like the flight ability, made parts of the game less interesting.
Darran Jones of Retro Gamer reviewed a version called Yooka-Replaylee and said it was better than the original. He praised improvements in visuals, sound, and gameplay, such as allowing players to use both characters’ abilities from the start and redesigning the map and camera.
Spin-off and other appearances
A spin-off game called Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair was released on October 8, 2019, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Unlike the original game, Impossible Lair includes levels that look like they are in 3D but are actually 2.5D, similar to the Donkey Kong Country series. However, the game also has a 3D overworld that players can explore.
A remake of the game, titled Yooka-Replaylee, was announced in June 2024. This version includes improved graphics and character designs. It also has updated controls, rebalanced challenges and puzzles, and new features such as a map to track objectives and a fast travel system. In Yooka-Replaylee, all characters’ abilities are available from the start, and the world expansion mechanic has been removed. Players begin the game in fully expanded worlds. New collectible items have been added, including a currency that lets players unlock special abilities called tonics. Yooka-Replaylee was released on October 9, 2025, for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.
Yooka and Laylee appear as playable characters in the fighting games Mighty Fight Federation and Brawlout. They also appear as a skin for the character Violet in the party battle game Brief Battles and as assist characters in the beat ’em up game Jitsu Squad. Developers Komi Games and Playtonic Games collaborated to create an official story for Yooka and Laylee in Mighty Fight Federation, which takes place between the events of Yooka-Laylee and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Additionally, Yooka and Laylee are available as paid costumes in the game Fall Guys.