Change is something that can be hard to understand or accept. We see this all the time with things like comic book adaptations, where characters “change who they are” based on who’s writing the script or overseeing the universe. The gaming world sees this in various ways, too, and in recent times, we’ve seen it with Donkey Kong. When Nintendo showed off the first trailer for the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza, fans were mixed on how DK looked. Some liked it, and others thought it was “too big of a change” for the character. However, Shigeru Miyamoto, DK’s creator, has opened up about why the time came to make this Nintendo icon look a bit different.
This all went down when Shigeru Miyamoto sat down with IGN to discuss key recent events in Nintendo history, and when DK’s design came up, he noted:
So there you have it. They weren’t trying to “erase the Rare design,” they were just improving it to do more with the character and shine a light on how Donkey Kong Bananza will be different from what came before. The game drops on the Nintendo Switch 2 on July 17th.
