Playtonic Yooka-Laylee will be published by Team17 with plans for retail release

Crowd-funded spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee, will be published by British publisher Team17, who are planning a retail release for the colourful, nostalgia-driven platformer. Earlier this year the game generated £2m ($3.1m) from around 800,000 backers via Kickstarter.

Team17 are best known as the developers of the Worms series, but moved into publishing in 2013. Last year they published The Escapists, a reasonably successful indie project, but Yooka-Laylee will be sizeable step up. They will also help Playtonic with QA testing for the game, localisation, marketing and the certification process. Their aim is to also get the game released at retail.

"[This partnership] is probably more significant than either Team17 or Playtonic fully realise right now," Team17 managing director Debbie Bestwick said to MCV. "They are friends of ours and we want to help it make sense for everyone.

"To the industry it's probably another reason for people to look at what we are doing even closer. We've built an exciting, modern games label here that helps creators achieve their goals with a team who understands what it takes to release a game, all the while keeping full control of their studio and IP."

Playtonic is a new studio comprised largely of veteran developers who made their names during Rare's heyday in the 90s – during which time they made classics such as Donkey Kong Country and Banjo Kazooie.

Their creative lead and studio head, Gavin Price, told MCV: "Team17 has significant experience in making the most of releasing a game. Personally I feel it would be a great shame if after our great Kickstarter success, we delivered on our promise of a great game and then it underperformed sales-wise because we didn't have the knowledge, or made a mistake in the way we released or marketed the game."

Yooka-Laylee is set for release in 2016.

For all the latest video game news follow us on Twitter @IBTGamesUK.