Super Nintendo World leaked concept art shows another glimpse of Donkey Kong area

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More clues hint towards the bongo-loving Ape’s introduction to the park

Donkey Kong
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Concept art of Super Nintendo World has appeared online and shows a small glimpse of a Donkey Kong-themed area in the park. 

In a tweet shared by @KRoolKountry, we can see illustrations of how the theme park in Universal Studios Japan was intended to look. As we can see from this Super Nintendo World tour many of the elements of the concept art made it into the actual park from Yoshi’s Adventure to the large Warp Pipe that visitors walk through to get into the attractions.

The interesting part of this concept art is the Donkey Kong-themed doorway hiding just behind the archways holding up Yoshi’s adventure. According to a follow-up tweet from the same account, the sign above the Donkey Kong archway resembles the logo from Donkey Kong Country Returns, which was a game released on the Nintendo Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS in 2010. 

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This may not be a surprise for many fans of the bongo-loving ape, as there have been several hints towards his introduction into the park even before Super Nintendo World had even opened its gates. It started with the same Twitter account spotting a series of Donkey Kong-themed stickers buried in the Universal Studios Japan’s visitor app, as well as the Unofficial Universal Orlando Podcast Facebook page sharing some leaked concept models of the Donkey Kong area. 

Super Nintendo World had a rocky start after having to delay its opening date several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The theme park is currently closed again just a few short months after opening for the first time due to a State of Emergency being introduced in the Osaka Prefecture in Japan - where the park is located - due to a rise in COVID-19 cases. 

If there’s any good news about Super Nintendo World though, it’s that fans won’t necessarily have to travel to Japan to experience it, as Universal Studios are currently in the process of building a replica park in their Orlando studios and a smaller version of Super Nintendo Land at their Hollywood location too. However, again due to the pandemic, some of the construction has experienced some delays. 

To see even more of what the park has to offer, you can check out most of Super Nintendo World in these 20 new videos.

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.