Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair is free to keep on Epic

As the original Yooka-Laylee was a throwback to Banjo Kazooie and 3D platformers of yore, so Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair is a throwback to Donkey Kong Country and 2.5D platformers of the era. It's the latest game to be given away for free on the Epic Games Store.

You can pick up Impossible Lair from the store from now until February 10th, and it's free to keep.

As well as the 2.5D levels, there's a topdown overworld to explore. It's more than just a Mario map of predefined path, but an explorable space you solve puzzles within.

The actual platforming is fairly traditional. There are vine walls in the background to clamber up, spinning blades to leap over, cannons that'll launch you higher - all the classics. The puzzles you solve in the overworld can alter the platforming levels, however, letting you flip them between slippy-slidey ice world or flooded versions, or in some cases flip them entirely upside down.

I love platformers and while The Impossible Lair isn't a classic, it's polished and colourful. As always, the price of zero helps. Impossible Lair would normally cost £25.

The next Epic Games Store freebie is Windbound, the Wind Wakeresque survival game about exploring islands via canoe. Epic recently announced that they'd continue to giveaway free games in 2022, after noting they'd given away 765 million copies of free games in 2021.