Yooka-Laylee Finally Lands on the Nintendo Switch This December

Nintendo Switch owners will receive a special gift in time for the holidays: Yooka-Laylee! As someone who backed the game, let me be the first to say it’s about time.

Gamers who backed the Yooka-Laylee Kickstarter campaign were annoyed (and rightfully so) when the news hit that the Wii U version of the game had been cancelled and that it was being ported over to the Nitendo Switch. Then, they were given even more bad news when Playtonic announced that the Switch version’s release date had been pushed back. But, now the wait is (almost) over, as Playtonic has just revealed the Switch version of the game will finally be available on December 14th.

According to the post, Playtonic has spent several months optimizing Yooka-Laylee and even received technical help from Nintendo and Unity. Switch owners will be able to use the JoyCon controllers to play the multiplayer games, and Yooka-Laylee should function both docked and on the go (I still don’t understand why The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild can’t manage this). Moreover, the Nintendo Switch version will come with a “custom Achievement system” as well as all the quality of life patches and updates that have been added to the Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC versions of the game since launch.

While most critics and gamers liked Yooka-Laylee, many complained about camera and performance issues and a general lack of polish. While these have been ironed out in the patches, we do not know how well the game will run on the Nintendo Switch. The console has received its fair share of ports, including DOOM, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and L. A. Noire, but the performance for these games has been fairly hit and miss. Only time will tell if the Switch version of Yooka-Laylee plays flawlessly or if it flounders about. Who knows, maybe the Switch version could be the definitive version of the game?