Yooka-Laylee Breaks Funding Goal in about 40 Minutes

Yooka-Laylee, a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie being developed by ex Rare Ltd developers, has surpassed its Kickstarter goal very quickly.

Yooka-Laylee was announced yesterday and the Kickstarter for the project went live today. A goal of £175,000 — about $270,041 USD — was set for the 3D platformer. That amount was met and surpassed very quickly, and it continues to rise.

Now that the Kickstarter page is live, we can glean much more information about the game. The titular heroes are Yooka and Laylee, a chameleon and a bat respectively. They possess many skills that were “built for platforming fun,” including “sonar blasting, tongue whipping, and sky soaring.” These characters were designed by original Banjo-Kazooie character artist Steve Mayles, who conceptualized them “from the ground up for stellar platforming gameplay.”

A core mechanic of Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 was the collection of numerous shiny objects used to unlock more of the game world. This is present in Yooka-Laylee in the form of “Pagies.” The Kickstarter page states “These golden collectibles are the main currency in the game, used not only to unlock new worlds  but expand them too. Every collectible type in our new game will expand gameplay in a meaningful way.”

The soundtrack for the game is being handled by veterans of Rare Ltd, including Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye 007), David Wise (Donkey Kong Country, Diddy Kong Racing), and Steve Burke (Kameo: Elements of Power). Voice actor Chris Sutherland is also on-board to “bring his iconic ‘gibberish’ style to the characters (and googly-eyed objects) of Yooka-Laylee.”

Playtonic plans to “have Yooka-Laylee ready to ship on PC, Mac and Linux by October 2016. Console versions will follow shortly after, dependent on resources and the performance of this Kickstarter campaign.” The highest stretch goal for the project — at £1,000,000 — is to simultaneously release the game on Wii U, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on day one. Pledging at least $15 will net you a digital PC copy of the game at its release. Pledging about $23 will secure a digital console version.

Are you looking forward to some classic 3D platforming in today’s gaming world? Sound off in the comments.