The studio behind the Grand Theft Audio series almost made a Kirby game for the Super Nintendo, which would have been called Kid Kirby. Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold 150 million copies to date and is the second best-selling game of all time, but it was a long road to get to the sunny shores of Los Santos. The Grand Theft Auto series is developed by Rockstar North, but that company used to be called DMA Design Limited.
DMA Design was formed in Scotland in 1987. The company's first big hit was the Lemmings series of puzzle titles, which went on to sell millions of copies and receive numerous sequels. The original Grand Theft Auto was released for PC and PS1 in '97, kicking off one of the most lucrative video game franchises of all time. The company would be renamed Rockstar North in 2002, as it was integrated into Rockstar Games (one of the subsidiaries of publisher Take-Two Interactive) and became one of its studios.
The Grand Theft Auto series would become associated with the PlayStation brand during the PS2 era, due to the incredible popularity of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas. DMA Design also worked with Nintendo on several games, including a title called Body Harvest for the N64, which is cited as being one of Grand Theft Auto's predecessors, as it allowed free-roaming in a 3D environment and let the player drive multiple vehicles. DMA Design almost had a Kirby game to its name on the Super Nintendo.
Kid Kirby From GTA Devs Almost Happened On Super Nintendo
According to Unseen64, Kid Kirby was meant to be a Kirby prequel that would be a puzzle game on the Super Nintendo. It makes sense that DMA Design would be the developer for the game, as it had a lot in common with Lemmings. The screenshots that have been released for Kid Kirby show a 2D side-scrolling game with huge levels. Former DMA Design staff member Dave Jones told Gamasutra that Kid Kirby was intended to be used with the Super Nintendo Mouse accessory, and the failure of that peripheral was the reason for its cancellation, as it wasn't fun to play with a joypad. Kid Kirby didn't appear in the Nintendo Gigaleak of 2020, but images and sprites from the game have made their way online, and they show a game that would have been close to Lemmings, with the player guiding Kid Kirby through the stages and using his malleable boy and Copy ability to bypass hazards.
Kirby is best known for appearing in platformers, but he has been part of puzzle games in the past, such as Kirby's Avalanche, so a Lemmings-style game wouldn't have been too surprising for the character. Fans missed out on the chance to play Kid Kirby, but the bigger loss belongs to Rockstar North, as the company behind some of the most violent video game franchises of all time could also have had a game with Nintendo's most kid-friendly character under its belt. The best fans can hope for is for someone to mod Carby from Kirby and the Forgotten Land into Grand Theft Auto V.