Yooka-Laylee finally has a Nintendo Switch release date
How about bat.
At long last, Yooka-Laylee will launch for Nintendo Switch on 14th December.
Pre-orders for the game go live a week beforehand, on 7th December, from the Switch eShop - where Yooka-Laylee will be exclusively available as a digital download.
So why has it taken so long? I chatted with Playtonic director Gavin Price and asked him that very question. Here's what he had to say:
"It's a new platform where we're using a middleware engine, so it adds another link to the chain - especially when we're the first game of this scale on this engine on this platform," Price said. "There's been lots of stuff to learn, especially when you've made decisions already for other versions of the game which you have to unbuild and then rebuild. We wanted it to be fantastic and to have achieved a really high optimisation level.
"We've had really great support from Unity and Nintendo - and folks at Team 17 - from people on the engine side of things to help us understand what's going on. They've put a lot of work and effort into the engine side of things where maybe they didn't even realise there was a problem, until someone comes along with a game like this."
Yooka-Laylee on Switch is the most polished version of the game at launch for any platform, and arrives with the various updates released so far included and also adds a couple of Switch-exclusive bells and whistles. Notably, you can use a single-JoyCon to play across all eight multiplayer games. There's also a custom Achievement system.
The images below are all taken from the Switch version.
"The Playtonic team have spent many, many months optimising Yooka-Laylee for Nintendo Switch and we believe we're delivering a version Nintendo fans can be proud of," the developer concluded. "Players can expect a quality experience both on and away from the television and on top of that, Switch players will benefit from the huge list of updates we've added since launch such as a brand new camera mode, control improvements, menu options, music... and a lot more!"