Super Yooka-Laylee Kart Preview: Ex-Rare Devs Chase the Diddy Kong Racing Magic

Playtonic Games revealed Super Yooka-Laylee Kart at Summer Game Fest, and IGN got hands-on time with an early pre-alpha build. The kart racer puts eight players on the track across courses based on locations from the main Yooka-Laylee games, and it's being built by some of the same developers who worked on Diddy Kong Racing — including Playtonic founder and Studio/Creative Director Gavin Price and lead software engineer Chris Sutherland, both former Rare veterans whose combined credits include Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2, the Banjo-Kazooie series, and Grabbed by the Ghoulies.

Visually, the game goes for a hybrid of Nintendo's 16-bit and 64-bit aesthetics — flat, colorful tracks lined with 3D assets, while the racers themselves are 3D models run through a filter to evoke pixel art. Even in its unfinished state it looks vibrant and faithful to the source material. The driving, however, felt slippery in the current build: turning was overly sensitive, and the reviewer frequently slid into walls. There was also no mini-map or track signage to warn of upcoming corners. A Playtonic rep confirmed both features are in development and that control tuning is standard polish work, so neither issue is a dealbreaker at this stage.

The standout feature is the custom ruleset system, which lets players build their own race types and feeds into the grand prix mode as well. During the preview cup race, one map turned all racers invisible, and the next forced every participant to play as the same character — stripping out weight and handling differences and making the race a pure test of skill. That kind of mid-cup variety is exactly the kind of thing that made Diddy Kong Racing memorable, and it's clearly the spiritual target Playtonic is aiming for.

The game is still early, and the rough edges in the pre-alpha are expected. But the bones — custom rules, course variety, and the pedigree of the team behind it — give Super Yooka-Laylee Kart a solid foundation to build on before it hits retail.