Banjo-Kazooie Spiritual Successor Yooka-Laylee Is Getting a Remaster — Here’s a First Look

Yooka-Laylee, the Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor developed by former Rare developers, is getting a surprise remaster for PC and consoles.

Developer Playtonic Games said the 2017 3D platformer will re-release with a visual overhaul, new controls, and camera system, as well as new challenges and secrets. The game also has a new name: Yooka-Replaylee.

Yooka-Laylee released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in April 2017, with a Nintendo Switch version following in December 2017. IGN’s Yooka-Laylee review returned a 7/10. We said: “Yooka-Laylee is a good reminder that this genre, once thought to be dead, still has some life left in it.”

Yooka-Replaylee is the result of the growth of Playtonic over recent years, it said, and “the things we have learned while working on other projects as well as the feedback we have taken on board since the original release.”

Here are the Yooka-Replaylee key features, per Playtonic:

• MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN EVER – With an art and animations overhaul and enhanced performance and resolution, the favorite buddy duo has never looked or moved better.

• NEW AND IMPROVED CHALLENGES – Improvements to existing in-game challenges and many entirely new challenges to discover and undertake!

• NEW COLLECTIBLE CURRENCY – Capital B’s inept minions have dropped their hard-earned coins all over the place. Collect the official currency of the Hivory Towers to spend on video games’ most beloved sentient vending machine.

• NAVIGATING THE WORLD – Now you can get lost in the game, not in the world! A brand-new world map and challenges tracker helps you know where you are and what needs to be done. Hooray!

• VENDI HAS PLENTY TO OFFER – Tonics are back with all new flavors! With the option to equip multiple game-changing enhancements, you can truly customise your playstyle. And as if that wasn’t enough, Vendi has new lines of merchandise for the modern fashionable adventurer.

• REVISED CONTROLS & CAMERA – A new tweaked move set allows you to combine moves more fluidly while the new camera controls makes framing the action a breeze.

• A DREAMY ORCHESTRAL SOUNDTRACK – The original score from famed video game composers Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie) and David Wise (Donkey Kong Country) returns but as a beautifully arranged orchestral score. Now seriously, clean out those ears.

Yooka-Laylee spawned a 2D spin-off, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, which released on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2019. IGN gave that one an 8.7. “Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair brings the dynamic duo down to a 2.5D perspective to deliver one of the best platformers we’ve seen in years,” we said.

Expect more on Yooka-Replaylee during a Q&A session set for June 11.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.