Stern Pinball’s Brand-New King Kong Game Is Totally Bananas

Zach Sharpe is really good at pinball.

I’m standing with Sharpe, director of marketing at Stern Pinball, in the company’s top-secret, badge-accessed Pinball Alley, located inside its headquarters in Elk Grove Village, Illinois (a suburb 20 miles northwest of Chicago, the pinball capital of the world). And the game we’re playing is none other than Stern’s newest title, King Kong: Myth of Terror Island. The games are available in Pro, Premium, and 932 Limited Edition (LE) models, with prices starting at $6,999.

This title has been guessed at by Reddit sleuths and arcade bloggers with a penchant for monitoring trademark filings, teased by Stern on social media, and after getting exclusive hands-on early access, I’m happy to report that the new machine is my favorite Stern release since 2021.

I first got into pinball at CES in 2020. I was playing the newly launched Stranger Things, and while I flipped frantically and hoped for the best, this nice gentleman with long white hair kept telling me to “be patient” and “slow it down.” (I found out later that man was quite literally Gary Stern, the founder of Stern Pinball, whom I also spoke with during my tour for this piece but was too panicked to greet properly. Sorry, Gary, I’m a huge fan.) After that, my friends and I attended the Midwest Gaming Classic, and I was hooked. I googled “how to stop a pinball from draining.” I learned about slap saves. I joined a league and played tournaments. I broke a billion points (on Star Wars, if you’re wondering). I didn’t know it for a long time, but I freaking love pinball.

Photograph: Louryn Strampe

Going Ape

When I first arrived at the factory, I asked Sharpe what his favorite pinball game ever made was. He mentioned two: Cyclopes, a rare machine his father, pinball historian Roger Sharpe, designed, and Godzilla, which just so happens to be my favorite machine as well. It’s also the favorite game to play of Keith Elwin and Jeremy Packer (also known as Zombie Yeti), respectively the lead game designer and lead art director of King Kong: Myth of Terror Island. (Rick Naegele, lead software engineer, was an outlier, citing Iron Maiden as his favorite to play. But I won’t fault him for that—I’m just bad at Iron Maiden.)

If you’ve played a Stern Pinball machine before (and you probably have, given the fact that Stern is one of the oldest and most storied pinball manufacturers in history), you’ll recognize the mark of the team’s work immediately. King Kong feels just as fun to play as Godzilla, Iron Maiden, Jurassic Park, and Avengers: Infinity Quest. I love all of those machines, and I fell immediately in love with King Kong as well. The candy-colored playfield makes it hard to decide where to look first, especially on the Premium edition, which has all sorts of toys and gizmos. There are four flippers, a secret path, a diverter, a creepy tarantula magnet (I affectionately nicknamed the spider “Jeff”), and a network of rails that go up, down, and loop around (including a helix-shaped ramp complete with a biplane). There’s also a gong bash target near the middle right of the playfield. I lamented the fact that I would no doubt drain a few balls while trying to get my pinballs behind it, to which Elwin helpfully pointed out that I could just avoid hitting it.

Photograph: Stern

But the urge to get an epic high score is too strong for me to listen to this commonsense approach from the mastermind game designer, which is probably why I’m always draining on his games. The upper right corner of the playfield houses Kong himself, with the train (either a physical sculpture or a flat toy, depending on the model) where you can lock balls for a multiball. In the Premium edition, the animatronic Kong will swing his torso, wave his arms, and sucker-punch this train over to start the multiball.

The only problem: I couldn’t calm down enough to get my pinballs where they needed to go. That’s where Sharpe stepped in. He set up the King Kong multiball on his first try not once, but twice, with a few skilled nudges and the type of ball control that only comes with years and years of practice. It was thrilling to see Kong knock the train car over and the balls shooting all around the playfield, evoking the same (albeit, secondhand) sense of accomplishment that comes with finally demolishing the building in Godzilla or setting up your Avengers: Infinity Quest Iron Man multiball just right. In the meantime, in my games I was able to set a different multiball, get into a few island encounters, and be amazed at just how darn playable this game is. It’s easy to find a flow, hitting combos and maneuvering the ball across the playfield, though there is the classic Keith Elwin design that encourages caution rather than smashing every flipper and hoping for the best.

Getting into a groove is easy on King Kong. Without giving away too many spoilers, the storyline involves multiple characters, scenes, and encounters on an island as well as in New York City. And of course, there’s a giant ape involved. Stern Insider Connected, that literal game-changing connectivity feature that allows players to track their pinball progress and earn achievements, is a star of this game too. King Kong is shipping with Co-Op mode enabled, a feature that has previously been added to applicable machines later on with a code update. Co-Op lets you play with teammates and pool your scores. (And, for what it’s worth, I did ask about potential inter-machine play, given the historical crossover between King Kong and Godzilla franchises. Sharpe said it would be difficult given the licensing involved, but my fingers are still crossed.)

Photograph: Stern

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

During my time at the factory, I got to see behind the scenes of how Stern’s pinball games are made. Each new game receives a code name—King Kong’s was “Rodeo”—and the playfield pilot holes are started on an ancient punch press that was previously owned by Gottlieb. There’s a quarter mile of wire and 3,500 components in each pinball machine, and it takes about 30 hours of work to finish assembling one. They are methodically inspected every step of the way. Be it at the harness wiring booth, the soldering station, or the decal area, workers diligently check every component, with a final quality control check at the end (aka “getting to play and adjust pinball machines for a living”). Stern ships games to dozens of countries on every continent but Antarctica. Aside from the Pinball Alley where I spent my time playing, there are pinball machines scattered throughout Stern HQ. Sharpe says employees are encouraged to play 15 minutes of pinball every day—as far as job duties go, certainly an onerous task.

I asked the four men I interviewed whether they thought the licensing or the gameplay was more important when it comes to a new pinball launch. They all agreed it was a mix. Sometimes, the licensing draws people in—maybe you don’t love pinball yet but you know you love Metallica, or the Marvel movies, or giant fire-breathing lizards. Or maybe, like me, you just want to bash all the shiny toys until the playfield lights up and officially proclaims you to be a pinball wizard. No matter which way you lean, I think King Kong offers the perfect crossover. Since the giant monkey is part of the public domain, Stern was able to create a story in-house rather than working back and forth with licensers. The game is loosely based on the original 1932 story, and it feels vaguely familiar but fresh and original at the same time. The voice acting is great, including the voice of the announcer, Brian “Q” Quinn. There are tongue-in-cheek lines and adventures on the island and in New York City that feel reminiscent of Jurassic Park or Godzilla. But King Kong is a special game that feels fresh and stands up all its own.

Of course, a $7,000 price tag is nothing to sneeze at. I asked Sharpe whether or not he thought the recent tariff wars would affect this or future Stern machines, and he expressed uncertainty, adding that Stern had to learn to be nimble during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that the company has many different sources for parts around the world. (To be clear, the pricing on King Kong: Myth of Terror Island is finalized.) But unlike many other luxuries, you don’t need to have a ton of cash to play pinball. Just stop by literally any arcade worth its salt and a Stern machine will be there. Launch parties are being planned for King Kong, and with more than 1,000 Stern Army locations, it’s a safe bet that you’ll have a machine within driving distance once they start shipping out. Whether or not you can build enough skill to earn free games is another matter entirely, but I implore you to try. Enthusiasts will assure you that pinball never truly died, but it’s better and bigger than ever in a giant ape-sized way. I can’t wait to get my hands on this machine again.

Photograph: Stern