the studio needed a refresh

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We'll be re-running some of those stories over the next few days. Here's one of them. Kombo's crack E3 Away Team had a chance to get hands-on with the new Donkey Kong Country game today. Not only that, but they also got the opportunity to have a chat with Bryan Walker, Senior Director of Development at Retro Studios. Walker was kind enough to explain a little about the game's development and give Kombo a few specific details about a number of the game's features.Walker felt that after their work on Metroid Prime, the studio needed a refresh. They needed a new franchise to sink their teeth into, and it just so happened that they were all big Donkey Kong Country fans. The opportunity to play around with one of Miyamoto's favorite characters wasn't one they wanted to pass up.Walker confirmed that the peanut gun from Donkey Kong 64 would be making a return to Diddy Kong's hands. He said very little about any other influences that Donkey Kong 64 may have had on the development of the new game. But he did share the fact that when development started, the first week or so was spent playing through every previous Donkey Kong Country game to completion. One of the things they noticed was how challenging the games were, and this was very much something they wanted to recapture for the new game. Kombo's own Mike Rougeau died about five times throughout the course of the five minute demo, and assures everyone it was nothing to do with any lack of gaming skill on his part. The game has simply returned to being an old-school unforgiving platformer which demands precision.One example of this is a mine cart level that demands absolutely perfect timing with very little room for error. Jumping from one mine cart to another as the previous one falls into an abyss is the sort of thing gamers were doing twenty years ago. How will modern gamers respond to it?It seems from what Walker said that the team were really inspired by the past success of the Donkey Kong Country series and wanted to try their hand at their own take on it.Walker