Report Claims a 3D Donkey Kong Game Was Once in Development for the Switch

05.05.2024 - 18:32 / gamerant.com / Shigeru Miyamoto / Seth Rogen / Donkey Kong / Nintendo / Matthew Schomer

Reports are beginning to surface that an open-world Donkey Kong video game was once planned for the Nintendo Switch, but the project was scrapped. A new hour-long video claims that the Donkey Kong game would have been headed up by then-Activision subsidiary Vicarious Visions, now known as Blizzard Albany.

While Donkey Kong was a Mario villain before moving into a more heroic role in his own games, he's still one of Nintendo's most recognizable characters. That said, he now hasn't taken the individual star role in a game for more than a decade. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze made its debut on the Wii U in February 2014 and marked the last time that the red tie-wearing gorilla had top billing in a video game. That game had been developed by Retro Studios, which shifted its focus back to the Metroid franchise following Tropical Freeze's release.

The information about the scrapped game was brought to light on the Did You Know Gaming YouTube channel by Liam Robertson, a contributor who specializes in documenting unreleased and canceled video game projects, and it draws most heavily from a report by DK Vine founder Hyle «Slush» Russell made in January 2024. The original report points out that Vicarious Visions had been partnering with Nintendo to bring Nintendo characters, including Donkey Kong, to Skylanders Superchargers, including console-specific characters through Nintendo figurines that doubled as Amiibos. This allegedly led to plans for a Switch game codenamed Donkey Kong Freedom, which would have seen the titular ape swinging from and grinding on vines in an open-world format in an attempt to stop a factory and a dam from killing all the banana trees in the Kongs' jungle.

According to the original report from DK Vine, Vicarious Visions founders Karthik and Guha Bala's exit from the company in 2016 spelled the beginning of the end for Donkey Kong Freedom. While the report states that the Bala brothers were interested in working with Nintendo and seemed to have a positive creative working relationship with Donkey Kong creator and long-time Nintendo director Shigeru Miyamoto, Activision then shifted Vicarious Visions in a new direction, instructing the studio to focus instead on the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, a compilation of remastered Crash Bandicoot games, which released in 2017.

While fans of the franchise will have to continue to wait for the big ape to finally get a long-overdue follow-up to Tropical Freeze, Donkey Kong seems to be keeping a place in Nintendo's spotlight in other ways. After a prominent role in 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, complete with a beloved performance by actor Seth Rogen, Universal Epic Universe will have a Donkey Kong ride, planned to open in 2025.

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