What's Playtonic Games up to these days? The team behind the Rare-esque 3D platformer Yooka-Laylee has been on the down-low since 2019, when it released its quietly great follow-up, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. As you might expect, the studio has been busy behind the scenes, but it's emerged with a somewhat surprising announcement: it's now a publisher.
Through the new label Playtonic Friends, the team is looking to support fellow indie studios with publishing. Playtonic itself has partnered with Team 17 for its own games in the past, but it appears it'll be looking to self-publish in the future, and it'll be signing a handful of external projects too.
Currently announced collaborations include Awe Interactive (Bullets Per Minute, which is in development for PlayStation 4), Fabraz (Slime-san: Superslime Edition), and Okidokico (OK Golf on PC). Small scale studios indeed, but it seems Playtonic is in a position to lend a hand.
According to CEO Gavin Price, the company will remain largely focused on its own games. "As an operation we're still going to be 90%, developer, 10% publisher, but with an eye on self-publishing in the future, we're going to have skills and expertise in-house to help other people," he tells GamesIndustry.biz.
We'll definitely be interested to see any titles that come out of Playtonic Friends. What do you think of this? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 8
The name is pretty clever
I just need more Yooka-Laylee in my life.
@elvisfan1 I hated the first YL, one of the few games I dropped on PS4, but its great to see there giving smaller devs a boost
@Kopite The first game was pretty terrible but Impossible Lair is a drastic improvement. I'd rank it up there with Mario, DK and Rayman as some of the best 2D platforming this gen.
@Kopite the second game is much better apart from the final ‘impossible lair’ which ruined it for me. Might be easier now because they patched in checkpoints.
@fR_eeBritney @Rob3008 The first game is the only reason I've not been near Impossible Lair, glad to see its a better experience
Was this the big announcement they were teasing?
Good for them. More publishers on this level is great for the industry.
I personally feel Team17 overprices their games by a lot. For bigger indy games like Yookalaylee it's warranted but I've passed on a bunch of games they've published until sales because of their pricing.
I am happy for them. With bigger publishers gobbling up the market it's nice to see the little guys have some support.
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