The successful Kirby Wii game is being adapted for Switch, retaining its four-player co-operative multiplayer.

After a good reception for Kirby and the Forgotten Land earlier this year, Nintendo’s pink ball rolled into the latest Direct to show off its latest video game, which is actually an adaptation of the title that launched on Wii just over ten years ago. It’s Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe, which now has a release date and trailer.

The colourful action-platform adventure can be enjoyed solo or with friends thanks to its 4-player co-operative multiplayer mode, in which you can play with different characters from the universe or take control of four versions of the title character, whose iconic ability is to clone the abilities of those they eat.

“There is also a selection of mini-games available, including several familiar ones such as Kirby Samurai and a brand new game, Maglor’s Bloodhunter,” reports the game’s official synopsis.

When can we enjoy Return to Dream Land Deluxe on Nintendo Switch? The pink orb’s new adventure will hit stores on February 24, 2023.

But why Kirby?

Incredible as it may seem, the franchise featuring the adventures of the cute pink marble is named after a real person, the lawyer John Joseph Kirby Jr., who died in 2019.

The lawyer John Kirby and the character named after him – the resemblance is striking.

His most famous case was Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. in 1984, which he handled as a partner in Mudge Rose. In that case, he defended Nintendo against Universal Studios’ litigation in a dispute over the video game Donkey Kong, which Universal claimed was an unauthorized use of the title character from their film King Kong.

Kirby won the case, a landmark victory for Nintendo.

Indeed, the lawyer presented evidence that although Universal had previously won a legal battle against RKO claiming that the story and characters of King Kong were in the public domain; Universal had no legal basis for claiming ownership of the characters and the basic script (a man rescues a woman from a giant ape) when the studio initially threatened Nintendo with a lawsuit—winning the case led to the lawyer being seen as having ‘saved Nintendo’ at a time when it was just breaking into the US video games market.

In gratitude for the help, Nintendo gave the lawyer a $30,000 sailboat, which they christened Donkey Kong, and “exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats.” Shigeru Miyamoto also said that the name of the Kirby character (created by Masahiro Sakurai) was chosen in his honour. Rumour has it that a copy of Dream Land was eventually sent to the lawyer, who appreciated the gesture.

Source: Nintendo.com, Wikipedia