During the character introduction trailer for the upcoming Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor Yooki-Laylee developer, Playtonic treated players with a special surprise.
At the tail end of the trailer, it was revealed that Shovel Knight, of indie darling Shovel Knight fame, would be joining the game’s cast.
If you are unfamiliar with either game, let’s start with the main one. Yooka-Laylee is a call back to old platformers like Spyro, Jack and Daxter, and Banjo-Kazooie. Specifically, the game is a successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series developed by Rare back in the day. In fact, Playtonic was actually formed by several ex-Rare vets. The game was funded through a Kickstarter campaign which started during May of last year. By the end of the campaign the studio raised over 2.3 million dollars for the game.
Shovel Knight has a similar story. It too was funded by a Kickstarter campaign back in 2013. The game is anot homage to classic 2D platformers like Mega Man. Players take control of the titular Shovel Knight in his quest to save his partner Shield Knight. The game released in 2015 with critics everywhere praising the game.
Shovel Knight’s time in the trailer is short mostly him joking that his adventuring lead him into the wrong game and Laylee saying that the finally found an NPC worth something. It’s unclear how involved Shovel Knight will be in the game.
Besides the cameo, the trailer also showed off a host of characters including the game’s main antagonist Capital B, an angry looking business bee. The always funny snake named Trowzer. Dr.Quack, a duck head floating in a gumball machine Krang-style. Rextro, a hologram of a low-poly T-rex which could be a call back to the early days of 3D animation. The octopus scientist Dr.Puzz who looks like a reverse Sandy from Spongebob. From the trailer, it appears that Dr.Puzz will fill the role of transforming the duo like Mumbo Jumbo in Banjo-Kazooie. The last two characters revealed were Blasto and Kartos, a cannon and cart respectively.
There were a few unnamed characters revealed as well including a pig knight eating a candy cane, a tiny knight riding a pogo pony, a cloud, an explorer skeleton in a pot, a snowman, and a furnace.
Yooka-Laylee is slated to release sometime in March of 2017 for Xbox One, PS4, Steam, Wii U, Mac, and Linux.