Kirby's Return to Dream Land underwent an 11-year development cycle, perhaps one of the longest in the series. It started right after the release of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, designed for the GameCube. This project featured 2.5D visuals (similar to Kirby 64) and co-op multiplayer, was tentatively titled "Kirby GCN", and was one of 3 canceled projects.

The second one was in a fully 3D environment, yet had not achieved the quality Nintendo had expected; the Kirby series would not revisit this approach for a full game until Kirby and the Forgotten Land in 2022. The third one was once again a 2D side-scroller with pop-up book visuals. These projects were eventually recognized as failures due to how most of the focus was on multiplayer instead of the game itself.