Why Nintendo Redesigned Donkey Kong, According to Shigeru Miyamoto

Earlier this year, we received confirmation that Donkey Kong’s fresh new look wasn’t just for the Super Mario Bros. Movie. The Donkey Kong redesign was here to stay, per the character’s appearances in Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and more. Love it or hate it, that’s your business, but now Shigeru Miyamoto has finally told us why the great ape got a makeover in the first place.

Miyamoto spoke to IGN at the unveiling of Universal’s new Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida, which brings the new Donkey Kong Country expansion to the U.S. for the first time. In our interview, which you can read in full here, we asked Miyamoto about the new design, and what it was like seeing Donkey Kong “grow up” alongside Miyamoto’s career at Nintendo.

Here’s his response in full:

“So when it comes to character creation and working with characters, I still take an active role in that. And looking back to the first generation Donkey Kong Country, we worked with Rare to create Donkey Kong Country.

“When we were talking about trying to create new versions, evolving Donkey Kong, we created the game called Jungle Beat. We worked together with the team that made 3D Mario. With the technology that was available at the time, we were able to make Donkey Kong more expressive. And going back to the design that Rare came up with, we reevaluated; what can we do with the design to make it more expressive? And then when it comes to the movie, we decided to move forward with this new generation Donkey Kong design.”

More expressive, huh? It certainly seems like Nintendo has nailed that. Fans have pointed out across social media that the new Donkey Kong is relatively similar to the old one, but has a sillier, more over-the-top look and expressiveness to him that the old design didn’t quite capture. And it looks like we may see more Kong redesigns in the future to accompany him, as Diddy Kong already got a very light redesign (he has teeth now???) as well.

You can catch up on our full interview with Miyamoto at Universal right here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.