Yooka-Laylee update targets camera and cut scenes

It looks like Rare-esque 3D platformer Yooka-Laylee [official site] has had one of those quality-of-life patches that might be of interest if you've been holding off the game thanks to reports of batty camera angles and tedious cut scene repetition.

The update caught my attention when it was flagged up alongside a price cut over on GOG which is now over*. The update was actually applied far earlier on Steam in accordance with the Summer Sale but got lost in the general "OH GOSH IT IS THE STEAM SALE" maelstrom for me. Why flag it up late? Because I had a lovely time with the game in so many ways but really bashed my head against its flaws so any update that tries to rectify those is worth a mention.

Here are the top-level update deets - the updeets if you will:

- New camera mode with minimal assist available in the settings menu.
- General camera improvements in certain locations.
- Option to skip the cut-scenes.
- Make the chat bubbles go faster (or even skip them altogether).
- New music on the pause menu.
- The Capital Casino is now bug-free!
- Numerous other fixes and general improvements.

Options to skip the cut scenes would have made me approx 900,000 times happier with the final boss fight, let me tell you. Same with the speeding up of dialogue. "The Capital Casino is now bug-free!" made my eyelid twitch a bit but only because declaring anything bug-free in a 3D platformer seem hubristic at best.

In the fully fleshed-out patch notes there are a few which caught my eye:

"Pagies have added signposts to Hivory Towers to help guide players to new worlds" - This one might help out with navigation issues for players confused by the hub world layout although it doesn't help with some of the sprawling levels not having a map. I'm used to that from N64 Rare days but it's not easy if you're not used to it, I suspect.

"Camera design improvements throughout game (less scripted cameras, door cams now appear behind player etc)" - YES!

"Hunter tonic now tracks the last 30 Quills and Casino Tokens, in addition to the Health and Power Extenders. It will also whistle at the location of the closest rare collectable." - so basically what I assumed it should do in the first place.

"Improved flying controls" - So. Freaking. Necessary.

Anyway, it's a really friendly-feeling game with that sprawling liveliness I associate with Banjo Tooie, particularly. There was a day one patch aimed at addressing some of the issues reviewers (including me) flagged up but I think the problems still cast a shadow over the talk around the game and made it hard to talk about or recommend the game without a heap of caveats. This sounds far more extensive in terms of what it changes so I'd be interested to hear whether any of you have applied it and how far it goes to fix irritants.

Yooka-Laylee is over on GOG and Steam at £34.99 / 39,99€. For dollars it's $39.99 on Steam and $45.13 on GOG but with the extra $5.14 added as wallet funds to offset the regional price differences. I'm looking from in the UK so not sure if that's true if you're looking at the prices from the US on GOG but worth noting just in case.

*Apols for missing that news but I had important weekend business to attend to in that I needed to move a gigantic wardrobe, eat a cinnabon and concoct gooseberry lemonade syrup for fancy sipping this week.