Donkey Kong artist celebrates 40th anniversary while Nintendo stays oddly silent

Breaking barrels for 40 years (Picture: Nintendo)

While Nintendo refuses to celebrate Donkey Kong’s birthday, a series artist is celebrating the occasion with new artwork.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of both Donkey Kong and Mario, since they both debuted in the same arcade game, and while it has been rumoured that Nintendo has big plans for the ape nothing has materialised so far.

At time of writing, Nintendo hasn’t even acknowledged the occasion on any of its social media accounts. But a brief Twitter search show that DK’s fans certainly haven’t forgotten, among them one Steve Mayles, who once worked as an artist on the first two Donkey Kong Country games at Rare.

He was responsible for designing the characters Dixie Kong and King K. Rool, with the former remaining a mainstay of the franchise to this day, and he’s joined in with the celebrations by sharing an original piece of artwork.

The art depicts DK and his sidekick Diddy Kong about to plummet down a minecart track, which is bound to elicit nostalgia from long-time fans.

The minecart segments are a well-remembered and iconic aspect of the Country games, even making returns in the more modern games like Tropical Freeze.

Mayles’ contributions also include character designs for Banjo-Kazooie, as he continued to work at Rare until 2014. He now serves as character art director at Yooka-Laylee studio Playtonic Games, alongside a number of other former Rare employees.

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While there’s no guarantee of any big Donkey Kong related announcement from Nintendo today, it’s certainly not impossible.

After all, earlier this week, Nintendo announced a new Nintendo Switch model out of the blue with zero build-up. It wasn’t quite the long-rumoured Switch Pro everyone thought it’d be, but it only further highlights how Nintendo moves to the beat of its own drum (or bongos in this instance).

Multiple sources have claimed that a new Donkey Kong game is development for a 2021 release. But no one could quite agree on whether it’s a 2D or 3D game, or even who’s making it.

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