Yooka-Laylee, the 3D platformer meant to serve as a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, has recently had a new trailer revealed by developer Platonic Games. It’s showing off a number of the games colorful and quirky characters, with a surprise. Among the revealed cast members was a very special guest, the stalwart hero who shares the same name as the game he stars in, Shovel Knight.
The newest Yooka-Laylee trailer went through a parade of original characters, all with amusing and expressive designs, as well as creative names to match them. There’s Rextro the retro-gaming T-Rex, Kartos the mine cart whose name is a reference to God of War, and Trowzer the snake (get it? Trouser snake hahaha). But even with all of these interesting characters shown off in the trailer, Shovel Knight’s appearance was still the most surprising, despite it being given away in the title.
Interestingly enough the 3D model for Shovel Knight shown in the trailer was not made by Playtonic Games, and was actually made by Shovel Knight’s original developer, Yacht Club Games. His voice was provided by Sean Velasco, who was the head director and designer for Shovel Knight, in the first actual instance of Shovel Knight verbally speaking out loud in any way.
Shovel Knight was an indie 2D platformer from 2014 developed by Yacht Club Games that released to critical acclaim. Yooka-Laylee is coming from a developer that, while mostly composed by former industry veterans from Rare Ltd., is still independent and new to the world of gaming. With Yooka-Laylee’s mission statement seemingly being to revive the fading genre of the 3D platformer in the gaming mainstream, it only seems fitting that it and Shovel Knight would cross paths like this at one point.
Yooka-Laylee is planned for release worldwide across multiple platforms in early 2017.
