Vicarious Visions – the Activision studio now known as Blizzard Albany and perhaps best known for supporting the development of Destiny 2 and several Call of Duty titles, as well as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 – pitched a 3D Donkey Kong game to Nintendo.
DK Vine reports that a Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze sequel – which has been heavily rumoured for some time now given Kong hasn’t been treated to a game of his own since 2014’s Tropical Freeze – was a platformer codenamed “Freedom”, and had been slated to come to Switch.
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According to DidYouKnowGaming‘s video, “Donkey Kong’s Lost 3D Platformer & The Decay of Activision Blizzard” which explores “a number of lost projects using some of Activision’s most beloved intellectual properties”, numerous anonymous Vicarious Visions developers concurred that the studio did indeed develop a scrapped Donkey Kong game.
Set in an expansive open-world island, the game would’ve made use of VV’s burgeoning skateboard expertise, as DK would’ve grinded across the map with bananas on his feet.
However, despite other persistent rumours, it seems work on the title did not last long. According to Robertson, after only six months the project lost momentum and was eventually cancelled in 2016, around the same time Activision pivoted to focus on its world-beating Call of Duty franchise. It was at this point, reportedly, Vicarious Visions’ founders Karthik and Guha Bala left to form Velan Studios.
Veteran development studio Vicarious Visions was originally founded in 1991 and became part of Activision in 2005. Its prolific output included work on the publisher’s Guitar Hero and Skylanders franchises, as well as Destiny 2. It was rebranded as Blizzard Albany back in 2022.