The season for over-consuming and brawling with relatives is almost upon us, but we at Playtonic have prepared some early festive gifts for you – and none of them involve us coming round your house for a scrap.

With work on Yooka-Laylee almost complete, the details of our release plans can finally be etched in stone. There’s a lot to get through, but before we do: the Playtonic team would like to thank every backer and fan for your stellar support in 2016. Soon we’ll reward your noble dedication with a game that – hopefully – tickles you very, very much.

Onwards to the news…

Mark your Calendars

Today we can finally confirm that Yooka-Laylee will launch on April 11, 2017 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac and Linux, with pre-orders now available at £34.99 / $39.99 / €39.99 for non-Kickstarter backers in both digital and physical formats from all participating stores worldwide!

As an extra special bonus, everyone who pre-orders Yooka-Laylee on PC, Xbox One or PS4 will receive an instant unlock of the Yooka-Laylee Toybox, which offers a taste of the platforming mechanics set to appear in the full game in a self-contained, spoiler free sandbox. We’re also currently looking in to ways we can make the console Toybox available to appropriate backers (we’ll update you on that soon).

On Steam and GOG.com, you’ll also find special Digital Deluxe versions of Yooka-Laylee which include a digital soundtrack and manual / art book.

Kickstarter backers will soon be able to upgrade their pledge to a physical version, but we need a little bit longer to finalise the method. Our priority is to make sure that physical backers receive their game as soon as possible and not weeks late, so we want to make sure we choose the right distribution method before taking your pledges.

Don’t worry: as soon as upgrades are ready we’ll email all backers via Kickstarter.

Slots of Fun

Introducing our latest gameplay trailer, featuring the brand new world Capital Cashino!

This glamorous, marble-floored playground has our buddy-duo navigating the casino floor, discotheques and oversized roulette tables in search of delicious golden bounty. But there’s a twist; players must now compete to win casino tokens, and exchange them with the banker for the pivotal Pagies!

As with all the worlds in Yooka-Laylee, players can choose to expand Captial Cashino and make the environment even larger and more complex, with whole new areas to explore, characters to meet and challenges to complete. And if you find Dr. Puzz, she has a head-spinning transformation to unlock!

Capital Cashino is just a hint at what’s in store for the final game. There are still plenty of secrets left to uncover…

Making the Switch

After many challenging months, we’re finally able to update you on the Wii U version of Yooka-Laylee and announce a number of developments.

The Playtonic team is sad to confirm that despite our best efforts and exploring every possible avenue, we’ve encountered unforeseen technical issues that unfortunately mean it will be impossible for us to release the game on Wii U as initially planned.

We can however confirm the exciting news that we are now working very closely with Nintendo to look to bring Yooka-Laylee to the upcoming Nintendo Switch. We’re looking forward to exploring the opportunity and will have more details to share early next year.

We’d like to apologise to those affected by this development and offer all Wii U backers the opportunity to move their pledge free-of-charge to any of the versions launching on April 11^th (PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac or Linux) or upgrade to the Nintendo Switch version when we announce further details in 2017.

Information on how backers can change their formats will arrive in January, once we’ve finalised the smoothest possible solution. For more details on our platform change, we’ve prepared a Yooka-Laylee Wii U FAQ page.

The Playtonic team thank you for your continued support and understanding on this issue and hope you look forward to future developments on the Nintendo front. We hope, in the fullness of time, we can make Nintendo platforms a great place to experience Yooka-Laylee – and beyond.

Now Streaming

Soon you might notice some of your favourite streamers and video merchants begin producing Yooka-Laylee content, from the same demo that was recently present at the PlayStation Experience and EGX expos.

We’re very much looking forward to seeing how they get on. The feedback we received from attendees at consumer shows was brilliant and humbling – and that’s from a months-old demo with lots of content, features and polish missing!

As a special thanks for your support, we’ve put together a short video over on our Kickstarter page to give you a taste of what Tribalstack Tropics will be like in the final game, fully fleshed out. Hopefully you agree it’s a nice demonstration of the progress we’ve made in the past few months. Hit the link to watch it.

Thanks again for your support in another super year for Playtonic.

From everyone at the studio, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and we’ll see you in 2017 for an even better one!