Nintendo Reveals Three Abandoned Kirby Games

In the latest Iwata Asks column, Kirby producer Shigefumi Kawase has revealed three Kirby projects that were abandoned by developer HAL Laboratory.

The first was a four-player cooperative adventure. It was planned for a release shortly after Kirby Air Ride in 2003, but ultimately scrapped due to "how difficult it is to make a game that is both multi-player and single-player."

The second game was a 3D open-world game that featured "extremely challenging gameplay." Kawase says it was abandoned because "we weren't able to achieve the quality we hoped for and it never reached completion."

Finally, the last game was a side-scrolling adventure made to look "sort of like a pop-up book." It featured Copy Abilities, renewed from previous Kirby games.

The games were developed over the past eleven years, and ultimately abandoned in favor of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, which was released this week. The last traditional Kirby console adventure prior to Return to Dream Land was Kirby 64, which was released for the N64 in June of 2000. The full interview with Kawase, as well as Kirby's Return to Dream Land director Shinya Kumazaki, is available at Nintendo's official site.

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