From GameIndustry.Biz: “Playtonic wants to be clear: its new Yooka-Laylee game may look a little like Donkey Kong Country, it may sound a bit like Donkey Kong Country, and it may feature a few similar ideas, but Yooka-Laylee and The Impossible Lair is not a spiritual successor to Donkey Kong Country.
You can understand the confusion. Some of the original creators of Donkey Kong Country are working on it. And Playtonic’s last game, 2017’s Yooka-Laylee, was unashamedly a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie — another Rare classic from the 1990s.”
Source: N4G PC Playtonic: "We are never using the term spiritual successor again"