It’s somehow been seven years since Yooka-Laylee‘s last proper adventure (I’m not sure 2025’s remake, as enjoyable as it was, entirely counts), but the bat and lizard duo are finally back, and this time in a brand-new form. Yes, those recent leaks were right: we’re in for some classic SNES-style kart racing action when the now-officially announced Super Yooka-Laylee Kart arrives for PC at some currently undisclosed future time.
Super Yooka-Laylee Kart sees Playtonic Games’ best-buddy mascots following in the tyre tracks of the many other video game platform heroes (from Mario to Sonic to Crash Bandicoot) who’ve donned helmets and gone four-wheeled over the decades. But there’s a proper retro twist here, thanks to a visual style heavily inspired by the Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 wizardry, famously seen in the original Mario Kart. That means flat tracks spinning gaily beneath sprite-like riders, while the scenery thundering by is equally two-dimensional.
As for the racing itself, Playtonic promises “advanced techniques, expressive gameplay, tactical weapons, and high-skill competition”, alongside some intriguing twists on the usual karting formula.
There’s a Rage system, for instance, that builds throughout a race as positions shift and rivals attack, enabling players to unleash “devastating” revenge abilities and create comeback opportunities. Additionally, coins collected during races can be spent on perks between events, “forcing players to choose between maintaining top speed or gambling everything for a decisive advantage later in the championship”.
All this supports one to eight players across online and local split-screen multiplayer, and there’s talk of dedicated time trials, leaderboards, and friend lobbies featuring “extensive” race customisation, enabling players to create their own races, rivalries, and rules.
The news that’s got me properly intrigued, though, is Super Yooka-Laylee Kart’s story campaign which sounds like it might have a touch of Diddy Kong Racing in its DNA (Playtonic, of course, counts ex-Rare developers among its number, some of whom previously worked on that beloved game). According to the studio, Yooka-Laylee Kart’s story campaign is “deep” and “replayable”, featuring tournaments, rival races, time trials, endurance events, and a “huge variety of skill-based challenges built to continually push players to improve”.
Sadly, there’s no release date for Super Yooka-Laylee Kart yet – or even platforms for that matter, beyond Steam – but Playtonic says it’s planning to hold a number of multiplayer beta tests ahead of its launch.
