Donkey Kong Country Returns originally launched back in 2010 for the Wii. The Switch port is now adding Dixie Kong in a free update over a decade later and getting an upgrade for Switch 2. This is neat and also very bizarre, underlining what’s felt like a strangely chaotic strategy from Nintendo over the past year.
The free update to Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is out today and adds Dixie Kong as a playable character along with her helicopter hair spin. It also adds a Turbo Attack mode which essentially turns every level into a speedrun challenge. Finally, a free Switch 2 upgrade will give the game better resolution, improved visuals, and faster load times. It’ll also include support for GameShare so two players can play local co-op on separate devices using only one copy of the game.
Like I said, this is all very neat and also kinda weird. Donkey Kong Country Returns HD felt very much like a C-tier stop-gap filler release when it launched early in 2025 ahead of the Switch 2, and it still feels that way now. It recalls the surprising news last fall that Pikmin 4 would be getting a free update for Switch 1, but no upgrade for Switch 2. Meanwhile, more graphically demanding games like Xenoblade Chronicles X, also released last year, still haven’t received an official Switch 2 upgrade. Even Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, a better and more recent game than Returns, doesn’t have one.
Are these little pet projects within Nintendo spearheaded by individual developers who feel passionately about showing some extra love to certain games in the company’s back catalog? Are they part of a broader strategy to pump up certain characters ahead of new movies? The latter seems like the most likely possibility for Donkey Kong, which is rumored to be getting its own big-screen spin-off.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but for some reason Nintendo’s more scattershot approach to new content and announcements over the last 12 months feels like more than just the entropy of an increasingly complex branding machine. The boring Mario Tennis Joy-Cons, for example. What were those about? Next we’ll be getting new levels for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and a Zelda Amiibo for Echoes of Wisdom.