Donkey Kong Bananza is yet another game like Mario Kart World whose development began on the original Nintendo Switch, but development was moved on to the Nintendo Switch 2, as the core mechanics’ best implementation could only be possible on the new generation system.
Speaking in a lengthy interview with IGN, Producer Kento Motokura and Director Kazuya Takahashi confirmed that the game development began on Nintendo’s previous generation system. At the time, the development team was still using voxel technology and going over different ideas for applications, but as soon as they received news of the Nintendo Switch 2 development, they realized that the best implementation of the game’s core mechanics would be on the new generation system.
According to Takashi-san, the continuity of destruction, which is an important part of the Donkey Kong Bananza experience, could be expanded on the Nintendo Switch 2. The system allowed the developer to create a rich variety of materials and very large-scale changes in the environment. Besides the system’s better specifications, what really appealed to the development team were other features the Nintendo Switch 2 offered, like mouse controls, which can be used in co-op play.
During the interview, the Donkey Kong Bananza producer and director also went over how the game and its central mechanics came to be. The idea for the development of a Donkey Kong 3D game came from Yoshiaki Koizumi, Super Mario Odyssey producer and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat director, a prospect that prompted the team to get to learn more about the character from Shigeru Miyamoto, what makes him unique, and explore how these distinctive features could define a new game. Ultimately, the experiments with voxel technology featured in Super Mario Odyssey gave the development team the idea of destruction as a core mechanic, which worked well together with Donkey Kong’s defining features.
Donkey Kong Bananza launches on July 17 on Nintendo Switch 2 worldwide. You can learn more about the game by checking out Nathan’s preview.
