The mystery pillar in Donkey Kong 64 has been definitively solved.
For those who haven't played Donkey Kong 64, the 1999 game for Nintendo 64 featured a very curious addition in the museum area for Creepy Castle. When wandering through the halls, players could spot a lone pillar with a spiral design through a pane of glass. Despite the light shining from above to "exhibit" something, the pillar had no purpose, and held no item, spurring confusion from players on its inclusion in the game.
Here's the true purpose of the Donkey Kong 64 Pillar…
During development, the pillar was meant to house a Golden statue of Donkey Kong shown from the shoulders up; a golden bust. The appearance of this statue was meant to be part of Rare’s ambitious Stop ‘N’ Swop feature in Banjo-Kazooie, and like the Ice Key in that game would be tantalizingly out of reach until another compatible game was “connected”.
For the Ice Key, players would need to progress in Donkey Kong 64 until reaching Crystal Caves, where they would be able to set a special event in motion that would send relevant code to the N64 memory. When the power was turned off, and Donkey Kong 64 was “stopped n swopped” with Banjo-Kazooie, the game would read the relevant code from the N64 memory and unlock the ice wall in Freezeezy Peak in response. Players could collect the Ice Key, and then switch back to Donkey Kong 64 to “transfer” the Ice Key to that game, where it would unlock a Big Icy Door locked in Crystal Caves.
The Golden Donkey Kong statue would have needed a similar set up, waiting for a future Rare game to be swapped so that players could collect it, but on October 1st 1999, just a month before it’s release, Nintendo told Rare to remove the connection in Donkey Kong 64 over technical concerns. As a result, the Big Icy Door in Crystal Caves and the connectivity that allowed the Ice Key to be unlocked when switching Donkey Kong 64 with Banjo-Kazooie was removed from the game entirely. The Golden Donkey Kong statue was also removed, with only the pillar remaining.
For decades, players were confused by its appearance, with Rare commenting only that it was going to be used for something, which was removed. It wasn’t until the summer of 2020 when a Rare fansite (raregamer.co.uk) had gotten hold of a German Donkey Kong 64 players guide which hadn’t been modified in time for the games release.
In Crystal Caves, this guide shows the location of the Big Icy Door as well as an icon of the Golden Donkey Kong Statue above the Creepy Castle Pillar. Both map features had been removed in the North American guide to reflect the final game.
by FishnamedSteve