It was almost 10 years ago that a group of former Rare developers got together and established Playtonic Games. This was a team consisting of many of the minds behind Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country, and other such classics, so when their first title, Yooka-Laylee was released in 2017, we were relieved to see that level of creativity still very much alive and kicking (even more so with the improved Switch version later that year).
Playtonic would go on to release the side-scrolling platformer Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair in 2019, a title that we felt took all of the best bits of its predecessor and improved on them ā awarding it a 9/10 in our review, no less. While the studio has since been behind several games on the publishing side of things (Lil Gator Game, Demon Turf, and many more) a good few years have passed since it was last in the development seat. So, just what has been going on at Playtonic?
A small group of the Nintendo Life team was recently lucky enough to visit the studio in its Burton-on-Trent offices, where we were able to sit down with some of the key players and talk about all things to do with Rare, Yooka-Laylee, growing a development studio and more.
Our wonderful video producer, Zion, has put together the above video of our time at the studio, where you can check out everything that we chatted about and get a look at the many, many goodies that can be found throughout the Playtonic workspace.