The 3D DK Game of My Dreams Was CANCELLED

If Metroid Dread is anything to go by, no Nintendo game is truly "dead"

My goodness sir! Thank you for the kind StreetPass shoutout 🥰 - Zion

1:33 I find it funny you point out the cancelled Sheikah game. Cause the investigation that DYKG did revealed that the actual gameplay was just Whac-A-Mole with the Wii Mote. Also you weren’t even going to play as Sheik, you would be playing a new character who was a member of the Sheikah. Also-Also, I’m pretty sure the bit of information from the Gigaleak was literally just the project name on a document. Not really the blow your pants off info like uncompressed voice files from Star Fox 64 or anything like that.

My Wife: Why is cookie monster on my tv?

I get that Retro Studios had all hands on deck for Metroid Prime 4, but the fact that Donkey Kong won't have a single new title for the entirety of the Switch generation despite being one of the longest in Nintendo console history is bit disheartening. There's no reason Nintendo couldn't grant permission to another studio to make a new game, especially after their full acquisition of Next Level Games or the growing partnership with Bandai/Namco. DK platformers are arguably the best in the genre, and while Super Mario Wonder did an excellent job that shouldn't be an excuse for sleeping on the Great Ape.

This is only kind of related, but a friendly reminder that the Sheik game that was cancelled was nowhere near as cool as people speculated it might be, something DYKG also covered.

Surprised you didn't mention that Velan has ALREADY collaborated with Nintendo, they developed Mario Kart Live Home Circuit, that AR track builder a couple years back. Studios got a good future imo, used to work in the same building as em and they seemed like nice people.

We never got to be lathered in coconut cream pie..

You know what’s the worst cancellation of all time. Mega Man Legends 3. Its cancellation has left a Scar on Capcom compared to all the games Nintendo has cancelled.

You know, I have a funny story about this. Back before the gamecube came out, there was a new cover on it and it mentioned two games: "A game where Luigi has to save Mario, defeating ghosts with a vacuum." and "Donkey Kong Racing, a sequel to Diddy Knog racing where you ride on animals." So .... I told my older brother about this and he didn't believe me... later he said, he did believe me about Donkey Kong racing, but not the Luigi's ghost game. ........ Looking back, it's ironic huh? Given which one came out and which one was cancelled.... :^)

Having worked at a studio that’s developed games for Nintendo IP, and having worked at Activision, sometimes the legality for these things can be messy. If the powers that be decide to cancel a project, the publisher doesn’t necessarily always have access to that repository unless it’s explicitly stated in the contract. Not to mention any characters that were specifically created for that game in particular could partially be owned by the developer, not Nintendo (see Astor from Age of Calamity or Shez and Arval in Three Hopes). After Activision decided to pull the plug, it’s possible that Nintendo couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t touch the code because they didn’t have repo access nor a concept that too similar because of the rights to the project.

Finding out the next Skylanders title was actually in development before Imaginators flopped hurts my soul so hard. We knew imaginators had a scrapped large update, but there was a dedicated open world game?! Man…

A reminder that DK Vine originally broke this story and they’ve got a great podcast that goes into even more in-depth detail about this game.

Conceiving a game is only half the battle. Convincing an executive holding their purse strings tight that your idea will make bank is the other half. Never underestimate the psychological factor of game creation.

Image if Sunshine, Galaxy, Galaxy 2, 3D Land, 3D World and Odyssey did not exist. Image SM64 was the newest, and only, 3D Mario to this day. That's how it is for 3D Donkey Kong.

Maybe it could come back! People thought that Dread and Prime 4 were dead, and look at us now!😊

Velan Studios are the ones behind Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit

DK has been treated very oddly for the entire Switch generation literally the only games that have anything to do with his series he’s had on the system are re-releases

I didn’t even know there was another 3D Donkey Kong game in some form of development

Wild that you'd never mentioned that Nintendo had Velan made Mario Kart Live! Nintendo has Rapport with them! And rapport got their attention with a perfectly Nintendo Gimmick! Which, despite it's gimmick, is still a very polished experience!