Harmony is supposedly what Retro Studios were working on in the years between Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. After being cancelled, nobody expected that the Nintendo game would see the light of day, until now.
YouTuber Stumblyn, live streamed the full Harmony prototype on May 6, 2025. The VOD is still available to view and is four hours and forty minutes long.
Feel the rhythm in Harmony
The main protagonist in Harmony is a woman with red hair, decorated with an oversized flower. She wields a talking bamboo stick which appears to be a companion that helps you along the way. There’s a focus on music, with adorable little creatures breaking into a tune. When you fight enemies, the protagonist can sing to restore Harmony, presumably health. Song is also used as a way to summon another friendly creature that you can ride, helps you fight, and gives you a hand when navigating the world.
From the live stream footage, the game has a lot of platforming elements and short cinematic cutscenes. The animals and environment interact with you when you sing and there is a lot of exploration to be done.
The Harmony start screen gives old school GameCube vibes. It loads up with the iconic Nintendo logo and has a “press start” button to hop straight into the action. While in the game, the bright colours and visuals are also reminiscent of that era.
It’s unknown how long Harmony was in development for before it was cancelled. The leaked version is a very early build and is dated as being from 2017. Understandably, Stumblyn has left the disclaimer, “for legal reason I will not be sharing how to play this, where to find it, how to run it, or anything of the sort. This is purely for preservation purposes.”
Of course, there isn’t a whole lot of content here and the game build is far from complete, but it’s an interesting watch nevertheless.
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