Is Yooka-Laylee calling out Microsoft’s takeover of Rare?

When Yooka-Laylee was first revealed it was met with excitement from everyone that loved Banjo Kazooie and platformers. The game, a spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie, was fully funded via crowdfunding on Kickstarter within an hour of its inception.

Playtonic, the developers behind Yooka-Laylee, was formed by a band of former Rare developers who had escaped the studio after Microsoft took it over in 2002. At the time of the takeover (and after), there was quite a bit of focus on the studio.

Many of the developers were not happy with the new overlords. It seems as though Playtonic is alluding to the Microsoft takeover in the latest update on Yooka-Laylee. Taking to the official Yooka-Laylee site, the developers wrote the following:

“A FLURRY OF EXCITEMENT FILLED THE FACTORY FLOOR. EVERYONE HAD ASSEMBLED, FROM THE TOP-TIER BOSS CHARACTERS TO THE TEA MINION FROM SECTOR C. IT WAS FINALLY HERE; TAKEOVER DAY."

“THE INGENIOUS TECH FIRM QUACK CORP HAD BEEN SUBJECT TO A HOSTILE SWOOP BY DIABOLICAL PUBLISHING CORPORATION IN HIVORY TOWERS. TOGETHER THEY WERE ABOUT TO LAUNCH THEIR MOST DEVIOUS SCHEME YET, ALL UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF CUNNING BUZZNESS EXECUTIVE CAPITAL B!”

In addition to this, the game was further detailed to feature both Yooka and Laylee doing what they could to "thwart corporate creep Capital B and his devious scheme to absorb all of the world’s literature… and convert them into pure profit."

If anything, this sounds like when Microsoft took over Rare and stifled their culture and creativity with new procedures and methods of game design. Everything Rare did had to be a blockbuster game for the Xbox – otherwise it would be deemed as failure.

“IF YOU THOUGHT THE CHALLENGES SO FAR WERE TOUGH, WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE MY OUTLOOK FOR Q4 OF THE GAME…”

As for who 'Capital B' is – it could either be Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft at the time of the takeover or Bill Gates.