Playtonic Limited is a British

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

founded in 2014. It consists in large part of former members of Rare.

History

Playtonic Games was founded in August 2014 by Steve Hurst, Steve Mayles, Gavin Price, Jens Restemeier, Mark Stevenson, and Chris Sutherland, all of whom previously worked at Rare. Of the founders, Price assumed the role of

studio head Studio manager, studio director, or studio head is a job title in various media-related professions, including design, advertising, and broadcasting. Design and advertising A design or advertising studio manager's responsibilities will typically ...

. They were joined by

Grant Kirkhope Grant Kirkhope (born 10 July 1962) is a Scottish composer and voice actor for video games and film. Some of his notable works include '' GoldenEye 007'', '' Banjo-Kazooie'', '' Donkey Kong 64'', and '' Perfect Dark'', among many others. He has w ...

and Steven Hurst. The first game the company worked on was codenamed "Project Ukulele", which was described as a

spiritual successor A spiritual successor (sometimes called a spiritual sequel) is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous product or work, but (unlike a traditional prequel or sequel) does not explicitly continue th ...

to ''

Banjo-Kazooie ''Banjo-Kazooie'' is a platform game series developed by Rare, a British company. The games feature a male bear named Banjo and his friend, a large female red bird named Kazooie, both of whom are controlled by the player. Banjo originally mad ...

''. The team launched a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign for the project, and it managed to reach the stretch goal of US$1 million within 24 hours. In part due to the campaign's success, the team's attention was often diverted to other aspects such as making merchandise items instead of focusing on game's development, and some choices related to game development were forced as well due to them being promised in the campaign. Project Ukulele was unveiled as the 3D platformer ''

Yooka-Laylee ''Yooka-Laylee'' is a platform game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. It was released for Linux, macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One in April 2017, Nintendo Switch in December 2017 and Amazon Luna in October 2020. D ...

'', which was released in 2017 to mixed critical reviews. Playtonic followed up on ''Yooka-Laylee'' with ''

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair ''Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair'' is a platform game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17 in 2019. As a spin-off to ''Yooka-Laylee'' (2017), the game was released digitally for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and ...

'', their second game, a 2.5D spinoff. While bearing similarities with the ''

Donkey Kong Country ''Donkey Kong Country'', known in Japan as is a 1994 platform game developed by Rare (company), Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It is a Reboot (fiction), reboot of Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'' ...

'' series, the team opted not to use the moniker "spiritual successor" to market the game, unlike with ''Yooka-Laylee''. ''Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair'' was released in 2019 to a more positive reception than ''Yooka-Laylee''. Playtonic Games announced the rebranding of their company name to "Playtonic" and the launch of a publishing division, Playtonic Friends, in February 2021, with three titles under development from partner studios Awe Interactive, Fabraz, and Okidokico. On 26 March 2021, Playtonic Friends' revealed their first game, '' Demon Turf'', developed by Fabraz. On 29 April 2021, Playtonic Friends's announced their next game, '' BPM: Bullets Per Minute'', would be released in 2021 for

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

. On 19 May 2021, Playtonic announced ''A Little Golf Journey'', to be released on PCs and

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

and developed by Okidokico.

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

acquired a minority stake in Playtonic in November 2021.

Games developed

Games published as Playtonic Friends

References

External links

* {{Playtonic Games 2014 establishments in England British companies established in 2014 Companies based in Burton upon Trent Tencent Video game companies established in 2014 Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies