King K. Rool Creator Loves That His Character Is In Smash Bros Ultimate

One of the beautiful things about Super Smash Bros is that theoretically, anyone from Nintendo’s history can be in it. As all characters who have been playable have been on a Nintendo system in one form or another, including the 3rd party created characters. However, like all fighting games, there are characters that most people wish would enter the game. And since the second title about, one character stood out for many as conspicuously absent: King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong series.

But, in a lovely twist of fate, the recent Smash Bros Nintendo Direct revealed that King K. Rool was going to be in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and fans were thrilled. But they weren’t the only ones happy. For Steve Mayles, the creator of the character, noted to NintendoSoup that he was pumped for the inclusion as well, even though he didn’t know it was coming:

“I had no idea he was going to be included,” he said. “I knew he had a fair chance as he had appeared as a Mii costume previously, and since then he has been at the top, or close to the top, of many votes and ballots. There seemed to be a real groundswell of positivity in K.Rool’s direction that Nintendo would find hard to ignore.

Despite his popularity, King K. Rool wasn’t in the original Donkey Kong arcade titles, rather, he was created during the Donkey Kong Country era on the SNES, and also appeared in Donkey Kong 64, and he was created by the team at Rare, not Nintendo. And because of a bit of a divisive end between the two companies relationship, many saw King K. as “banned” from returning, until now, much to the fans, and Mayles, delight:

“K.Rool was a big part of the Rare-created Donkey Kong games in the ’90s but since then has fallen out of favour for some reason,” said Mayles. “But let’s ignore that, he’s back now! Some fans on the internet had made it their personal mission in life to bring back K.Rool, restore the King to his former glory; this passion amongst gamers always amazes me.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate will arrive on Nintendo Switch on December 7th.