Yooka-Laylee is a game that isn't afraid to wear its inspirations proudly on its sleeve. The Kickstarter-funded title was always explicitly designed to be a spiritual successor to Playtonic Games' most iconic series, and most of the players who were interested in picking Yooka-Laylee up found its similarities to Banjo-Kazooie endearing and appealing. While most players might have noticed the aesthetic likeness between the two titles, and many picked up on the way Yooka-Laylee's gameplay is heavily inspired by Banjo-Kazooie's most famous systems, there is at least one more - likely unintentional - homage.

As it turns out, Yooka-Laylee also happens to feature one of the most classic elements of N64-era games: a gigantic skip glitch, which in this case allows players to skip over half of the game. YouTuber MilsTailsPrower posted a video guide recently that details how players can break out of the map when they're in Yooka-Laylee's main world hub, Hivory Towers. That practice is instrumental in performing the massive skip.

Once the player has broken out of the restraints of Hivory Towers' map, they can damage themselves in a specific pool of acid nearby, which combos with Laylee's "Flappy Flight" skill to send the player character skyward. With enough practice, gamers can then land behind the door that leads to Yooka-Laylee's final boss, essentially cutting the game in half.

These kinds of skips are commonplace in many of the titles featured on charity speedrunning marathons like Awesome Games Done Quick, and have become more of a feature than a bug with the emergence of speedrunning culture over the past decade. While many gamers still have their reservations about Yooka-Laylee's place in modern gaming, the existence of this major skip almost ensures that the game will show up on the speedrunning marathon circuit in the near future.

For now, however, the skip is a neat little inclusion in a game with a playerbase that probably won't exploit it. Yooka-Laylee is explicitly designed to appeal to gamer nostalgia, and the players intrigued by its premise actively want to experience the entirety of the title. Skipping half of a game that is already a short jaunt through fond memories of the N64 certainly loses its appeal in that context.

Yooka-Laylee launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on April 11, 2017, with a Nintendo Switch release set to follow later this year.

Source: YouTube