[UPDATE]

Following Playtonic Games’ decision to remove him from Yooka-Laylee, Jon “JonTron” Jafari has responded to the move in an amicable way.

“Unfortunate to see Playtonic remove me from Yooka Laylee, but I understand their decision,” Jafari said in a Tweet. “I wish them the best with their launch!”

[ORIGINAL STORY]

Playtonic Games have announced they’re removing Jon “JonTron” Jafari’s voice from their upcoming Kickstarter-funded platformer, Yooka-Laylee.

“We recently became aware of comments made by voice artist JonTron after development on Yooka-Laylee had been completed,” Playtonic confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz. Playtonic said they’re totally against Jon’s personal views, and went a bit further:

“JonTron is a talented video presenter who we were initially, two years ago, happy to include as a voice contributor in our game,” they said in the statement. “However, in light of his recent personal viewpoints we have made the decision to remove JonTron’s inclusion in the game via a forthcoming content update.

“We would like to make absolutely clear that we do not endorse or support JonTron’s personal viewpoints and that, as an external fan contributor, he does not represent Playtonic in any capacity. Playtonic is a studio that celebrates diversity in all forms and strives to make games that everyone can enjoy. As such, we deeply regret any implied association that could make players feel anything but 100% comfortable in our game worlds, or distract from the incredible goodwill and love shown by our fans and Kickstarter backers.”

My take: Say whatever you want about JonTron, it’s a stretch of the imagination to think how a voice actor’s own personal politics can affect a player enjoying a throwback platforming game involving cartoony, talking animals.

Yooka-Laylee is launching for PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on April 11th, with a Nintendo Switch version coming sometime later this year.