Donkey Kong Bananza was planned for the original Switch until 2021

With the upcoming release of Donkey Kong Bananza, Nintendo has been eager to dish out some intriguing behind-the-scenes details about the game. It turns out that ideas for DK Bananza were conceived not long after Super Mario Odyssey in 2017. However, after numerous years of refinement, Nintendo realized that the original Nintendo Switch wasn’t capable of meeting the developers’ vision for Bananza. As a result, they decided to postpone the game’s release until the superior hardware of the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 became available.

As a passionate gamer, I was thrilled to learn about the latest updates on Donkey Kong Bananza straight from the developers in their Ask the Developers blog. They revealed an interesting tidbit: the early concepts for this game were conceived shortly after Odyssey, and one of the first ideas was to equip a Goomba with arms for punching through rock walls. However, as we started to see Donkey Kong Bananza truly take shape, the developers found that the constraints of the Switch proved too challenging for their ambitious vision.

🍌🍌 days ’til #DonkeyKongBananza

Pre-order today:

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) July 15, 2025

Around the year 2021, Producer Kenta Motokura mentioned that our team began contemplating a shift in development towards Switch 2. Later on, Developer Daisuke Watanabe elaborated further about this topic.

The team considered aspects such as ensuring smooth gameplay at 60 frames per second significant, which is why we can estimate when Nintendo started working on one of its first major Switch 2 games following the console transition. With Donkey Kong Bananza set to launch on July 17, 2025, keep an eye out for further updates and news regarding DK Bananza.

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2025-07-15 22:27