Yooka-Laylee Dev Isn't Making A New Banjo-Kazooie Game

Over the past few days, rumors and speculation have been swirling around developer Playtonic Games, the creators of platforming series Yooka-Laylee. The indie studio is, of course, comprised of numerous ex-Rare employees who previously worked on the Banjo-Kazooie games.

The rumors speculated that the studio was either making a new Banjo-Kazooie title, or that it had been acquired by Microsoft. As it turns out, neither of these is true.

Playtonic did recently hire ex-Rare artist Ed Bryan, and he did tweet a picture of a Microsoft bag with the caption: "Well, I never really had any plans to use this again." But the rumors spiralling out from this tweet were overblown.

The Yooka-Laylee creator has set the record straight, releasing a statement to assure fans that Playtonic isn't making a new Banjo-Kazooie game, and that it remains an independent studio.

So there you have it, there will be no new bird and bear game from Playtonic. The studio did, however, recently release Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, a 2.5D platformer that changes the formula of its 3D predecessor. In GameSpot's Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Layer review, Allesandro Barbosa said, "The Impossible Lair is definitely a better attempt at capturing the magic of platformers than Yooka-Laylee's first crack at it, but it's still not remarkable. If you're itching to return to a bygone era, then The Impossible Lair might scratch it. Just don't expect much beyond that."