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Yooka-Laylee studio Playtonic will soon be working on a sequel to the 2017 platformer following an investment from Tencent.
Announced today via Gamesindustry.biz (opens in new tab), the China-based technology conglomerate Tencent has made a “sizeable investment” into UK developer Playtonic which will allow the studio to double its headcount, expand to three development teams, and create more games. One of which, according to the article, will be a sequel to 2017’s Yooka-Laylee.
In an interview with the outlet, Playtonic boss Gavin Price said that the minority stake deal with Tencent was centered around the company’s ambitious plans around Yooka-Laylee. “I was surprised because I didn’t expect [Tencent] to be interested in Playtonic.” Price reveals, “It turned out that they had a department for genres, including a 3D platform department.”
Price also revealed what kind of plans the studio has for the chameleon lead 3D platformer adding, “we wanted to have an aspiration goal as well, which was to make Yooka-Laylee an IP that could appear on a major fast-food chain’s kids meal box.”
Price continues, “[Tencent] liked the studio and what we put out before,” – the studio’s previous work being 2017’s Yooka-Laylee as well as Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair – “and they thought they could help us achieve those goals. And it just continued from there,” Price explains. “But ultimately, this is about more games from us. We want to do more games more often.”
This isn’t the first time Tencent has invested in a video game studio, the tech giants also recently acquired a major stake in Don’t Starve dev Klei Entertainment, as well as System Shock 3 developer OtherSide Entertainment, and Bayonetta and Astral Chain studio Platinum Games.
For more games to look forward to before the end of this year, take a look at our new games 2021 list.
