Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair gets a lot less impossible soon

It gets a lot more impossible too

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair brandishes a final challenge that’s so difficult, it lives up to the billing in its title. The eponymous Impossible Lair is brutally hard, and nothing in the game up to that point really prepares you for the difficulty spike. In my review, I called the commitment to making the Impossible Lair actually near-impossible for a lot of people “equal parts admirable and confounding.”

That’s going to change next week as developer Playtonic alters it in both directions. Most crucially, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is getting a toggle for a “Not So Impossible Lair” setting that introduces checkpoints. Players will be able to start the Lair from the beginning or any of the three checkpoints that they’ve previously reached. They’ll go into each run with the maximum amount of health that they’ve had when they hit that checkpoint on their best attempt ever.

The Not So Impossible Lair is the new default because the actual Impossible Lair turns legitimately-nearly-impossible. This difficulty setting gets rid of all checkpoints and bee shields. It’s a 20-minute gauntlet that requires near perfection. It’s also the only way to get the ultra-rare Golden Tonic (which now doesn’t necessitate restarting the game so that you have no bees collected). If you want to see what that looks like, someone actually did it before Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair even launched.

Previously, the Impossible Lair’s difficulty probably prevented some people from being able to finish Impossible Lair. Now, everyone can play it their way. Players who struggle can chip away at the checkpoint system, eventually besting their previous records on any given section. People who want the original challenge can just always tackle the Impossible Lair from the beginning. And, the maniacs who want to one-shot the Impossible Lair can pick the new dedicated uber-difficulty.

This title update is scheduled to land on all platforms on Tuesday, April 14. In other Playtonic news, the original Yooka-Laylee gets a visual downgrade before the end of the month when the 64-bit Tonic is added on PS4 and Xbox One, which gives the game a Nintendo 64-era aesthetic. Additionally, Playtonic is bringing over Impossible Lair‘s 64-bit Tonic rendition of Yooka and Laylee, which will be part of an update for all platforms.

Yooka-News: Impossible Lair Update… And More! [Playtonic Games]