It seems like a lifetime ago, but in reality Donkey Kong Country Returns released on the Wii late into its life, with a launch date of 21st November 2010. It was then ported over to the Nintendo 3DS on 24th May 2013 and will now see a remaster on the Nintendo Switch on 16th January 2025.
Donkey Kong Country Returns was developed by Retro Studios after working on four Metroid Prime games for the GameCube and Wii. This also marks the first game in the series since Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble for the SNES on 18th November 1996 and Donkey Kong Land 3 for the Game Boy on 27th October 1997. All the Donkey Kong games up to this point were developed by Rare.
At the time, the idea that Retro Studios would move on from focusing on Metroid Prime games to reboot the Donkey Kong Country games was quite a surprise and concerns over how well such games would hold up when compared to the originals by Rare.
Thankfully Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Nintendo Wii was a great comeback for the series and it showed that Retro Studios were capable of much more than the first person action adventure games they had been creating up until this point. It isn’t perhaps as good as the sequel, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze that first released for the Nintendo Wii U then the Nintendo Switch, but it sets a fantastic foundation to be built on.
The remaster of Donkey Kong Country Returns is being handled by Forever Entertainment and right now, it seems there isn’t too much that’s different from the original other than it is being given a slight upgrade in visuals for the HD televisions the Nintendo Switch can output for.
There won’t be much to be excited for when it comes to the Nintendo Switch as we know by the end of March 2025, Nintendo will be revealing the successor console. Therefore it’s most likely any new games in development will be focused on releasing alongside the successor system to the Nintendo Switch.
