Yooka-Laylee Fastest Funded Gaming Kickstarter, £ 1,000,000 In Less Than 24 Hours

/ Updates /

Less than 24 hours after launching, Yooka-Laylee has hit all its stretch goals at over £ 1,000,000, making it one of the fastest funded Kickstarters on record.

Speaking purely of the crowdfund alone, the amount Playtonic Games raised for their Banjo-Kazooie successor is incredible, and shows just how much latent interest there was in a game like it. It hit its initial  £175,000 base goal within 40 minutes of launching, and breezed through each successive stretch goal in succession within the next sixteen hours.

These goals were:

·         Day one release for Windows, Mac, and Linux

·         Unique boss battles for every level with unique music

·         Boss Quiz Show challenge level

·         Transformations and a new NPC

·         Mine cart sections

·         Co-op mode

·         2-4 player local multiplayer versus modes

·         French, German, Spanish, and Italian localizations

·         Character designs from Kev Bayliss and Ed Bryan

With the final Kickstarter goal, console fans have clinched a simultaneous launch for the game on PC and Wii U, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game is planned for release on October 2016.

Playtonic themselves were ecstatic and shocked with how well the Kickstarter turned out. Composer and Rare veteran Grant Kirkhope commented about feeling vindicated that fans wanted to play a game like this for years. Of course, Kirkhope is alluding to Rare’s current owner, Microsoft, who had famously stated that they were giving Rare projects based on demand.

Five hours after launching, the fund hit $ 1 million, and this was a record in itself. As pointed out by writer and fan Emily Rogers, while Mighty No 9 was able to raise $ 973,000 within the first 24 hours, Yooka-Laylee raised more than that amount in 1/3 the time.

The sky’s the limit for Playtonic now, and they know it. Playtonic just added this stretch goal to the list:

It's clear that Playtonic is ready with adding incremental goals to the rest of the campaign. At 45 days, they will have to dig deep like Cloud Imperium Games did for their incredible crowdfund for Star Citizen.

What would you like Playtonic to add to the game next? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.