Lead designer Gregg Mayles has openly referred to the backgrounds in Donkey Kong Country as “the bane of the project.” Unlike other games of the era, which used repeating single-screen patterns to create lengthy backgrounds, Rare wanted the environments to feel organic. A painstaking process of splicing background elements together was used to retain as much of the 3D model quality as possible while disguising the repeating elements.
The game features several environment types, each one introducing an entirely new visual style. Jungles, underwater caves, snowy peaks, industrial facilities, ancient temples, and a pirate ship—Rare worked tirelessly until the very last moment to fit as much creativity and variety into the end product as possible.
