Playtonic takes the Yooka-Laylee series from platformers to familiar-looking arcade races.
Last year Mario Kart World didn’t really hit the mark for a lot of people. But during the Summer Game Fest edition of Day of the Devs, a game emerged that looks set to take arcade racing fans back in time. With Super Yooka-Laylee Kartdeveloper Playtonic Games is mixing characters from its Yooka-Laylee platform game series with the original. Super Mario Kart.
It’s immediately obvious that Playtonic took inspiration from Nintendo’s 1992 kart game, both because of the title and the game’s aesthetic. It feels like a modern take on Super Mario Kart featuring pixel-art characters running around a course featuring coins and boxes containing power-ups laid flat on the track. Those corner drifts also look very familiar.
However, there are many other differences between Super Yooka-Laylee Kart And Super Mario Kart beyond characters, track layouts and power-ups. The new game features a Rage system that builds as you jostle for position during a race and perhaps get hit a little too often by the equivalent of a blue shell. This ultimately allows you to use “devastating revenge abilities capable of changing the outcome in an instant,” Playtonic explains, allowing for “tactical comebacks.”
The studio plans Super Yooka-Laylee Kart as a pixel-perfect, skill-based arcade racing game where mastering mechanics and items will serve you well. There is a “deep story campaign” that includes tournaments, time trials, endurance trials, and skill challenges. You can spend the coins you collect during races on upgrades. There are also online modes as well as split-screen local multiplayer support for up to eight people. The races are also highly customizable. You can, for example, make all competitors invisible or modify the boost pads so that they slow down players.
I haven’t played any Yooka-Laylee games (the series is the spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie), so I have no connection to any of the characters. However, I grew up on Super Mario Kartso I really want to try this.
Super Yooka-Laylee Kart is in development for Steam. We don’t know yet if it will come to consoles, but it will surely end up on Nintendo Switch 2 at some point, right? Regardless, beta testing for online multiplayer modes will take place soon.
