Kirby And The Forgotten Land may have brought the long-running platforming franchise into the realm of 3D, but Kirby’s creators aren’t ruling out a return to 2D in the future. The latest adventure starring Nintendo's adorable pink puffball was just released on the Nintendo Switch yesterday and earned glowing reviews from critics for its colorful charm and imaginative new additions to the classic Kirby gameplay formula. This includes Kirby And The Forgotten Land’s Mouthful Mode, which allows Kirby to stretch himself into larger forms like a vending machine or a cute, meme-generating car.
However, the most noteworthy change to come from Kirby And The Forgotten Land is the game’s 3D movement plane itself, which is a first for the traditionally 2D Kirby games. Even when the Kirby series moved away from sprites in favor of polygon models like many other classic Nintendo franchises, the mainline entries before Kirby And The Forgotten Land would always retain the standard side-scrolling formula that players were first introduced to in the original Kirby's Dream Land for the GameBoy Color in 1992. HAL Laboratory director Tatsuya Kamiyama has previously noted the challenge in bringing Kirby into the third dimension with the development of Kirby And The Forgotten Land, and while this effort seems to have paid off in the form of solid pre-launch reviews, his development team is still open to returning to the Kirby gameplay format of old in future installments.
Several members of Nintendo HAL Laboratory recently sat down with The Washington Post to discuss the process of developing Kirby And The Forgotten Land. When the subject of whether or not future Kirby games will stick to 3D movement was introduced, Kei Ninomiya of Nintendo’s EPD Department noted how Kirby And The Forgotten Land’s 3D gameplay “has opened up more possibilities for future Kirby titles” and expressed hope that these future Kirby games can build upon this with new genres and play styles. HAL Laboratory general director Shinya Kumazaki followed up on this by saying that while “a full 3D game is certainly a fresh new look for the Kirby franchise,” it isn’t meant to be the end-all new standard for the series going forward. “We hope to go beyond what is currently imaginable and challenge ourselves to create new and innovative Kirby games […] We will continue to explore via trial and error and not just limit ourselves to 3D.”
The possibility of a return to 2D gameplay is just one of the insights that the developers behind Kirby And The Forgotten Land have shared ahead of the game’s highly-anticipated launch this week. Shinya Kumazaki previously noted that while Kirby And The Forgotten Land is somewhat darker than past Kirby games, neither he nor his team had set out to create a full-blown horror story out of the game’s post-apocalyptic setting. Kumazaki also revealed that unlike Nintendo’s Legend Of Zelda series, the Kirby franchise doesn’t have a set timeline that dictates what direction the next Kirby game could go in.
It's clear from these statements that Nintendo and HAL Laboratory wishes to keep every possibility open for the future of the Kirby franchise, including whether or not the next game will follow the 3D format introduced by Kirby And Forgotten Land. While the latest Kirby game has gained much praise for breaking new ground for the series, Nintendo could always return to a more traditional 2D side-scrolling approach if and when a new Kirby sequel is announced.
Source: The Washington Post