Kirby director says they won’t remake games for the sake of it

The past year was a busy one for Kirby fans. Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Kirby’s Dream Buffet and Kirby’s Return To Dreamland Deluxe have all released over the course of the past 12 months. Kirby’s Return To Dreamland Deluxe, a remake of the original that released on the Wii, is the most recent of the 3 to release. Attention is now turning to what the future holds for the franchise.

Kirby director Shinya Kumazaki addressed this to IGN at this year’s Game Developers Conference. There, Kumazaki mentioned that, while he can’t give any concrete plans for Kirby’s future, he mentions that HAL Laboratory’s goal is always to “provide a new gameplay experience”. Although the most recent Kirby release was a remake, Kumazaki says that remakes won’t just happen for the sake of it. They want to make sure that there’s something new added to the game. For example, Kirby’s Return To Dreamland Deluxe had the Merry Magolor theme park and Magolor Epilogue.

That wasn’t all that was discussed. Kumazaki also addressed whether there will be a mix 2D and 3D games going forward. Kumazaki, once again, didn’t say much about the matter. However he did say that having 2D games, 3D games, or “something completely different” are all things that are “within scope” for HAL Laboratory’s future.

Kumazaki concluded the discussion by saying that “you might have experienced it if you played Forgotten Land, in that it’s not quite open world. It’s really a 3D game that really utilizes, kind of inherits the playfulness and the ease of play of 2D Kirby games. And that’s a unique 3D experience that we want to provide. And so what we want to do moving forward is continue to provide that unique 3D experience, and not necessarily be caught within the boundaries of existing genres”.

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