Back in 2013, then-president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, took the stage at VGX to reveal Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze gameplay footage as Cranky Kong. Now, a decade later, two former Nintendo employees from the era discuss it.
Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang previously worked for the Japanese giant, with arguably their biggest accomplishment being the since-defunct Nintendo Minute. Speaking on their podcast (via Nintendo Everything), they discussed the lead-up to the reveal. During the Spike Video Game Awards successor’s sole run, it was set to be revealed, only for it to leak days before the event, with the surprise utterly ruined.
Geoff Keighley, who would later go on to create The Game Awards, was apparently “big mad” about the leak, which the duo chalked up to it being more of a lot of pressure on his shoulders as this event was poised to be the new Spike Video Game Awards, and with such a big reveal ruined, it no doubt had some execs breathing down his neck.
Of course, the show still had to go on, and Fils-Aime and a Retro Studios rep took to the event alongside host Keighley to officially reveal Cranky Kong to the masses. During the reveal, they joked around, with the previously frustrated event host even bringing up the leak.
“… we finally did settle on this idea of revealing Cranky Kong as a playable character in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which was going to be coming out the following February. … we’re getting into the home stretch of this game, and we’re thinking this can be a really cool surprise and a nice bit of fan service for Donkey Kong fans to be this exciting thing. It’s not going to be a new game announcement, maybe it’s not on the same level of things that we’ve revealed before, but this will still be cool and we can supplement this with some live gameplay – really show off the character and build it into this extended thing.”
