Playtonic Games Announces Team17 Is Publishing Yooka-Laylee

Playtonic Games is partnering with Team17 to launch its spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee. 

Team17, known for its work on the Worms and Alien Breed series, have been announced as the publisher for indie studio Playtonic Games' Yooka-Laylee. This means that Playtonic Games will have access to more funds atop the game's immensely successful Kickstarter campaign (the largest for a UK-based game studio), which ended up raising £2,090,104 (roughly $3.27 million) of its £175,000 goal (~$274,000).

“From the very start we said that we'd welcome only a partner that could genuinely improve the creation of our game, while respecting the independence and creative autonomy of our development team. Team17’s 25-year industry-leading expertise will significantly benefit Yooka-Laylee in a myriad of ways, not least in expanded localisation, improved QA testing, certification and access to vastly better resources for our team," said Playtonic Games' Creative Lead Gavin Price. "Working alongside such a strong partner will allow the Playtonic team to focus 100% of our efforts on building the best possible version of Yooka-Laylee for backers and new fans alike.”

Yooka-Laylee is being done by many of the former Rare Ltd. team members responsible for the Banjo-Kazooie series. This new game will have a soundtrack made in collaboration with some amazing game composers, including David Wise (Donkey Kong Country series), Steve Burke (Kameo: Elements of Power) and Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie series).

"We have deep respect for the team at Playtonic. They have a very rich heritage and have worked on titles close to the heart of a lot of our team here. We’ve been following their Kickstarter campaign with interest and are delighted to welcome them onto our label and into the Team17 family, said Debbie Bestwick, Team17's Managing Director. "I can’t wait to start working together on this great game and hope this is the start of a long term partnership between Team17 and Playtonic.”

Yooka-Laylee will launch in Oct. 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Wii U.

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