Playtonic's N64 nostalgia-fest Yooka-Laylee gets boxed retail release

Team of former Rare developers will bring 3D platformer revival to retail.

Yooka-Laylee PS4 Xbox One Wii U — The game's two stars, Yooka and Laylee (Yooka is the chameleon, Laylee the bat) Playtonic Games

British indie developer Playtonic Games has announced that Yooka-Laylee, its spiritual successor to Rare's Banjo-Kazooie series, will be getting a boxed retail release when it launches in the early months of 2017.

In a post on its website, the studio said: "As we get closer to launch and our plans take final form, we're finally able to clarify many of your most burning inquiries and requests. One such query we're delighted to tackle today is the ever-booming call for a boxed version of Yooka-Laylee. Do we have plans for a boxed release? Today we can confirm that the answer is, yes!

"We're delighted to be able to offer Yooka-Laylee in both digital and boxed flavours in time for the game's launch in Q1 2017. As we speak, our business badgers are busily burrowing away on an initiative that will allow Kickstarter backers to upgrade their digital pledge to a physical version, if they choose to do so."

Playtonic is a team comprised of many former Rare developers who worked for the beloved British studio during its '90s heyday, aiding the development of the Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country and Viva Pinata series.

This pedigree helped Playtonic's Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign raise just over £2million from 73,000 backers to get the project off the ground last year.

Following a successful appearance at the EGX video game trade show in September, Playtonic released a new trailer showing off the 3D platformer's colourful cast of characters. They also revealed that Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight will make a guest appearance following his own successful indie game.

On Shovel Knight's appearance (also his first as three dimensional model) Playtonic project director Chris Sutherland said: "We've always been fans of Shovel Knight and thought it'd be great to have some guest star characters from the rest of the indie community. It's great for indies to be able to do that. There's no kind of big barrier, you don't have to go through seven levels of approval, you just go: yeah, we're going to do that."