Donkey Kong Country Returns HD removes the original developers from the credits

Summary

  • Nintendo has excluded individual developers from Retro Studios from the credits of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD.

  • Nintendo's history of condensing credits in remastered games has been criticized by developers in the past.

The imminent release of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD confirmed that the game's original developers at Retro Studios were omitted from the remastered version's full credits. Set for release on January 16, 2025, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD presents a remastered version of the 2010 Wii platformer for Nintendo Switch owners.

Thanks in part to portability and Nintendo's large library of classic titles, the Nintendo Switch is a strong contender as one of the best contemporary retro gaming platforms. Nintendo itself has also gotten into the trend of remastering and remaking beloved classics, adding new content and graphical flourishes to refresh them for fans and newcomers alike. Recent years have seen things like the improved remake Super Mario RPG and remasters of classic series like War ahead. Even underrated narrative games like The Famicom Detective Club titles have seen a revival on the Switch.

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That slate includes Donkey Kong Country series. With Donkey Kong Country Returns HD release date approaches, news outlets with pre-release access have confirmed that Nintendo has omitted the staff of Retro Studios, developers of the original 2010 Wii, from the full credits of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. As reported by Nintendo Life, the credits screen only features credits for the staff at developer Forever Entertainment, who ported and enhanced the original game, along with content from the 3DS version, for the Switch. Instead of full credits appearing for Retro Studios, the credits screen shows a line saying that the remastered game is “Based on the work of the original development staff”.

Nintendo omits retro studios from Donkey Kong Country returns HD credits

The decision to condense the credits of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD falls in line with Nintendo's treatment of other Switch-based relaunches. In 2023, developer Zoid Kirsch, who was a programmer and senior game engineer at Retro Studios for the first two Metroid Prime games, criticized Nintendo for excluding the full original credits from Metroid Prime Remastered on Switch. At the time, he said he felt “disappointed” that Nintendo chose to leave out the names of members who no longer work at Retro Studios during the development of the remaster. Fellow developers chimed in, saying that excluding the original teams from the credits of remasters and remakes was a “bad practice”.

Credit is a hot topic in the gaming industry due to the importance of credits in building the career of game developers. Even in the realm of remastered titles, crediting the original developers also works as a gesture of appreciation, recognizing the effort of the teams who put years of their time into beloved titles. Nintendo is also accused of not crediting translators or providing translators and translation partners with restrictive non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from saying they worked on key series such as The Legend of Zelda. As a growing number of developers and fans publicly call out bad credit practices in the industry, the time may come when publishers, including Nintendo, will have to change their ways.

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