Playtonic Games has made their latest announcement for their upcoming signature franchise remake, Yooka-Replaylee.
As it turns out, they have a new publisher for the game, in PM Studios. PM Studios is not quite a household name yet, as they have focused on smaller titles from independent studios thus far. However, they did manage to get the contracts to publish the physical editions of Cognosphere’s Honkai: Star Rail and Game Science’s Black Myth Wukong, both for the PlayStation 5.
The press release makes it clear that PM Studios is co-publisher, as opposed to taking over publishing duties completely. While they didn’t’ say this directly, it’s possible that Playtonic will have sole control over the digital release, while PM Studios was added on for the physical release. This arrangement may have been drafted in such a way that Playtonic keeps all the rights to their game as an IP.
Playtonic CEO Gavin Price shared this statement:
“Yooka-Laylee was always our love letter to the golden age of platformers, and Yooka-Replaylee is a love letter to that love letter. PM Studios innately understands this. They’re a perfect partner for Playtonic Friends as we enter this next stage of our journey with the game.”
In turn, PM Studios CEO Michael Yum said this:
“As a fan of collectathons like Yooka-Laylee and Banjo-Kazooie before that, it’s a delight to partner with Playtonic in bringing Yooka-Replayee to platformer fans around the globe. With our powers combined, Yooka and Laylee will be bigger than ever.”
But we think you’re most interested in the part of the press release where they name the platform that Yooka-Replaylee will be coming to. We’ll quote that sentence for you below:
“Yooka-Replaylee releases later this year on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo platforms.”
Last October, Playtonic first announced the game, and said that it was coming to Nintendo (eye emoji). It’s an interesting situation as Nintendo has revealed the Switch 2, but the big Switch 2 Direct is still on the way. The rumor was that Nintendo was forced to release a small reveal trailer for the Switch 2, and with very limited information to boot. This was so that other game companies could start announcing their games for it. However, thus far, the only game officially confirmed for the platform was revealed in that trailer itself, and it’s Nintendo’s next Mario Kart.
It’s possible that Playtonic is still legally disallowed to announce their game for the Switch 2. But, it’s also possible that they’re in the clear to do that, and all of this is a highly elaborate publicity scheme. That may sound like some kind of conspiracy theory, but certainly, we ourselves were prodded to write about it. And the situation could be somewhere in between.
But the change in wording also suggests that Yooka-Replaylee could have both a Switch and Switch 2 version. It will certainly be interesting if that’s a very real thing that game developers need to decide on for their game releases on the Switch 2. After all, Sony decided it was necessary to remake The Last Of Us Part 2. In any case, the Switch 2 Direct couldn’t come any sooner.
