In April 2008 , Retro saw the departure of three key developers , designer Mark Pacini , art director Todd Keller , and principal technology engineer Jack Mathews , who went on to form their own company , Armature Studio . Around the same time , Shigeru Miyamoto asked fellow producer Kensuke Tanabe to recommend a studio that could develop a new '' Donkey Kong '' game , and Tanabe recommended Retro . Kelbaugh had worked on the '' Donkey Kong Country '' series during his years at Nintendo of America , and had interest in continuing with the franchise . Retro accepted the task , and thus started development of '' Donkey Kong Country Returns '' . Similar to '' New Super Mario Bros. '' , the game was developed with the intention to invoke nostalgic feelings in the player with its art style and sound , while trying to provide them with new gameplay experiences . '' Returns '' employs fully polygonal 3D graphics with three times the amount of textures and polygons that '' Corruption '' offered , and over the course of six months , two thirds of the game 's tools and engine had to be rewritten by the programmers . Development accelerated at the outset of 2010 , and the project was just " beginning to cohere as a game " around the time of E3 , when it was officially announced to the press . Although the game was set for release in autumn that year , the team still had 70 levels to create or refine . After the development of '' Returns '' was completed , two more key departures happened at Retro , with senior designers Kynan Pearson and Mike Wikan moving on to 343 Industries and id Software , respectively
E3
E3 2010
Retro Studios