Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Yooka-Laylee patch targets camera issues and performance

Out now on Xbox, other platforms to follow before launch.

Playtonic and Team17 have announced a patch for cheery Banjo-Kazooie homage Yooka-Laylee. It's out now on Xbox One, and will launch on PC and PS4 before the game's 11th April release.

The update resolves a number of glitches and improves general performance. In particular, it takes aim at the game's camera - one of the rougher aspects of a not-unworthy platformer that is a little too in thrall to the classics. Here's the changelog in full:

  • [Fixed] Camera will become locked in place after completing Gravity Room challenge in Galleon
  • [Fixed] Grappling the seeds as they break in Planker's challenge causes erratic behaviour in Moodymaze Marsh
  • [Fixed] Game softlocks and has to be reset if the player leaves the course and faints during the Nimble race in Tribalstack Tropics
  • [Fixed] Softlock will sometimes occur on the Hub C slide if the player faints at the same moment as the timer reaching zero
  • [Fixed] If the player leaves Brreeeze Block's room in the Icymetric Palace in Glitterglaze Glacier but remains in the world and returns to the same room then the isometric camera will be deactivated
  • [Fixed] If player is killed by a bizzy in hub B and knocked back into the archive door at the exact same time, the screen will still transition. When the player respawns, they will be unable to move
  • Performance improvements to various camera transitions in the introductory cut scene
  • Performance improvements to Shipwreck Creek and Hivory Towers. Various areas have been improved including camera movement
  • Performance improvements when using the light beam in the Icymetric Palace within Glitterglaze Glacier
  • Performance improvements during the House of Cards ball roll course in Capital Cashino
  • Performance improvements in the Bee-Bop arcade game

Here's hoping tweaks to the dodgy handling during flight are next on Playtonic's fix list. "Hiccups of this sort don't cripple Yooka-Laylee," I wrote in Eurogamer's Yooka-Laylee review yesterday. "But they do scrape the shine off a project that is already a mite too comfortable with the glass ceiling its premise imposes, for all the flurries of fourth-wall-breaking humour."

There's also a Switch version of Yooka-Laylee on the way, though Playtonic has yet to announce a release date.