This Canceled Diddy Kong Racing Sequel Sounded Pretty Cool

Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo 64 is a fondly remembered game. It could have been followed up with another entry for the Nintendo GameCube, but the project--Diddy Kong Racing Adventures--never moved past the pitch stage. Now, Andrew Borman of PtoPOnline has published a video that shows off what the Climax Studios-developed game looked like in its pitch stage.

As you'll see, Adventures was pitched as something of a combination between a racing game and an adventure game. After being defeated in Diddy Kong Racing, the evil Wizpig wants revenge, so he sends his Kremlings to Diddy's Kongo Island to bulldoze the area, in turn creating race courses. Diddy would have recruited his pals from the first game to go up against Wizpig to reclaim the island.

The adventure mode from Diddy Kong Racing was set to return. Players would have been able to travel between six different zones, each featuring three courses that could also be played in mirror mode. When players visited a Kremling-controlled area, the screen would have been black and white, only regaining color when Diddy Kong took control of a region. Similar to Diddy Kong Racing, there would have been a hub world where players could decide where to play next.

In terms of vehicles, Adventures would have included quad-bikes, planes, jet skis, and hover scooters. There were also plans for vehicle upgrades and customization options. Unique to the game would have been a pretty cool-sounding feature where your character could move positions on a vehicle using the C-stick. Another planned feature was the ability to leap onto another vehicle mid-race.

The game was also going to have multiplayer support for up to four players via split-screen, while players could also adjust the time of day and weather. Note that what's in the video above--Diddy riding a rhino--is only a tech demonstration for how the game and some of its systems would have worked.

Adventures was pitched in 2004 with an aim to put the game on GameCube (though this video is of an Xbox version). There is no word on why Nintendo declined to greenlight the game.

Rare, which developed Diddy Kong Racing, also proposed a sequel, Donkey Kong Racing, but this game never happened either. The newest entry in the series was 2007's Diddy Kong Racing for DS.

Would you like to see a new Diddy Kong Racing game? Let us know in the comments below!