Fan-Made Donkey Kong Country 4 Lands this November

Nearly three decades have passed since Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! hit the SNES, and in that time the series has only grown by two: Donkey Kong Country Returns on Wii and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which arrived back in 2014.

Each of those sequels kept the side-scrolling foundation that made the original trilogy so beloved, but gave it a modern facelift — new mechanics, new antagonists (the Tikis in one, the Snowmads in the other), and a complete visual overhaul that swapped out the series' signature pre-rendered sprite work for fully modeled 3D characters.

Personally, I've always had a soft spot for the Kremlings and that old-school pre-rendered look of the SNES games (Donkey Kong Country 2 remains, in my opinion, the series' finest hour), so I've long wished for a proper numbered sequel that stuck with that classic aesthetic. As it turns out, that wish is finally coming true — just not from Nintendo. Instead, it's a fan-made project slated to drop on November 18th, 2026.

Called Donkey Kong Country 4: The Kong's Return — first flagged by Retro Dodo — this PC fan game goes beyond just Donkey, Diddy, Dixie, and Kiddy. It's also pulling in cast members from Donkey Kong 64, meaning Chunky and Tiny join the roster too, alongside the fan-favorite Lanky Kong.