Donkey Kong Country Returns HD removes Retro Studios staff from credits
Forever Entertainment confirmed as developer.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD's credits are missing the original game's development staff.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is a remaster of 2010's Wii release, which was developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo. However, Retro Studios is not the team behind the upcoming remaster, with porting duties instead being handled by Forever Entertainment.
In the new game's credits, Forever Entertainment is front and centre, however Nintendo has omitted the original development team from the credits. Instead, the credits simply state the HD remaster was "based on the work of the original development staff", as you can see in the images below (thanks, Nintendo Life).
This is not the first time an original game's staff have been left out of the credits by Nintendo. The same thing happened in 2023, when former Retro Studios engineer Zoid Kirsch said he was "let down" by the lack of individual credits in Metroid Prime Remastered.
Meanwhile, last year, translators contracted from firms outside of Nintendo voiced their disappointment at not being credited for work on high-profile games, including The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Super Mario RPG.
Eurogamer has reached out to Nintendo to find out what its current policy is for a game's credits.
We recently awarded Donkey Kong Country Returns HD - which is set to release tomorrow, 16th January - three out of five stars.
"A straightforward remaster that struggles to outshine the Switch port of Tropical Freeze, but Returns HD is still a challenging and satisfying platformer that stands the test of time," our Katharine wrote in Eurogamer's Donkey Kong Country Returns HD review.