Latest Yooka-Laylee Trailer Features Shovel Knight

Playtonic Games' latest trailer for the upcoming Banjo Kazooie spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee has been released, revealing that the game will focus on a surprise cameo from Shovel Knight.

During EGX 2016, it was revealed in a new Yooka-Laylee character trailer that the game will feature a surprise appearance from Shovel Knight, the hero of Yacht Club Games' 2D side-scrolling platformer of the same name.

The trailer represents a short but funny switch between Yooka, Laylee, and the knight wielding a shovel, highlighting some of Rare's trademark irreverent sense of humor.

Apart from the cameo from Shovel Knight, the trailer also features a number of NPC's and important characters in the game, such as the main antagonist Captial B (who's fittingly a bee), the ability-teaching Trowzer, the guardian of arcade machines Rextro, the half-human, half octopus ally Dr. Puzz, the male cannon with eyes Blasto, and the helpful wooden mine cart Kartos.

With so many characters, and with a lot more still on the way, it seems that Playtonic Games is keeping its promise to make Yooka-Laylee larger than Banjo-Kazooie, even if it meant taking a couple of months extra time. But considering what has been revealed of the game's characters (surprise cameos or otherwise), environments, and music, it's perfectly understandable why Playtonic Games would decide to delay Yooka-Laylee in order to make sure that the game is as good as possible before release.

Judging by the E3 preview of Yooka-Laylee, Playtonic Games' aim of capturing the spirit and aesthetic of Banjo-Kazooie has been nothing short of successful so far, and the introduction of Shovel Knight only strengthens the final product. There's still a couple of months to wait before the game is finally released, but it appears that Yooka-Laylee is certainly living up to the hype as one of E3 2016's - if not one of 2017's - best indie games.