Yooka-Laylee is a frustrating case of unrealized potential. The game manages to exactly replicate the look and feel of the Nintendo 64 platformers it pays homage to, but a variety of technical issues and flaws hold it back. Thankfully, a major update is coming to get this lizard and bat back on track.
Last month Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic Games promised a patch that would, amongst other things, fix the game’s camera and let you skip those annoying gibberish voices. Well, now Playtonic are providing more details about what precisely the “Spit ‘n’ Polish” update will include:
Videos by ComicBook.com
- Brand new pause menu music
- New optional camera mode with minimal assist
- Pagies have added signposts to Hivory Towers to help guide players to new worlds
- Design tweaks to all arcade games
- Speed improvement to scrolling through Totals Menu
- New option for shorter ‘gibberish’ voice sound FX
- New speech volume option
- New ability to speed through dialogue by holding Y
- Cut-scenes can now be skipped with Y
- New moves section added to pause menu, with image guide
- Camera design improvements throughout game (less scripted cameras, door cams now appear behind player etc)
- Restart option added in the pause menu during arcade games and Kartos challenges
- ‘Sonar-able’ objects now have more clear visual identity
- Laser move no longer requires player to crouch
- Minecart control improvements and new visual effects
- Transformation control improvements
- Improved first-person aiming controls
- New first-person aiming control options added
- Improved flying controls
- When transformed, collecting butterflies now restores energy
- Hunter tonic now tracks the last 30 Quills and Casino Tokens, in addition to the Health and Power Extenders. It will also whistle at the location of the closest rare collectable.
- Health UI is now always visible when low
- Design tweaks in various areas (Black Hole in One, Gloomy Gem Grotto etc)
- New icons added for keyboard/mouse controls
- Improved Rampo boss fight
- Added PC Display Settings to the in-game pause menu
- Performance improvements
- Audio improvements
And that’s not all! We also get our first image of Yooka-Laylee running on the Nintendo Switch! Sure, we’ve seen “Nintendo Switch” trailers that were probably running on different hardware, but it seems more real when you actually see Yooka and Laylee between two Joy-Cons.
Yooka-Laylee is currently available for PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, and PS4. Playtonic haven’t set a specific date for the big patch yet, but promise it will arrive “within the coming weeks.”
