Nintendo revealed that detail, which many fans had already suspected, during recent hands-on events with Donkey Kong Bananza, saying that the same team that developed Super Mario Odyssey is behind this month’s Switch 2 release.
Confirmation of Donkey Kong Bananza’s developer is something of a deviation from Nintendo. In recent years, the company has sidestepped questions about which teams and studios are behind its unreleased games. Oftentimes, Nintendo will wait for players to watch a game’s end credits to find out who developed a certain game.
Development of Super Mario Odyssey was led by Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 8, with director Kenta Motokura and producers Yoshiaki Koizumi and Koichi Hayashida at the helm. You can see a lot of the group’s 3D Super Mario experience in Bananza; there are big 3D levels full of secrets and collectibles, a co-op partner in Pauline, and a substantial rethink about what a Donkey Kong platformer should be. Bananza is all about mass level destruction and transformations that give DK the power of other animals, including a zebra and ostrich.
Donkey Kong Bananza is the first 3D Donkey Kong platformer since Donkey Kong 64, released by Nintendo in 1999 and developed by Rare. It stars a redesigned Donkey Kong that’s similar to his appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie and gives rising Nintendo star Pauline a new role in the larger Mario universe — that of DK sidekick.
Switch 2 owners can play Donkey Kong Bananza when it’s released on July 17.