Koizumi Pitched 3D Donkey Kong to Mario Odyssey Team

When Donkey Kong Bananza was first announced, many speculated that it was being developed by the same team behind Super Mario Odyssey. That assumption proved correct, leading to further rumors that the game initially started as downloadable content or a sequel to Odyssey before becoming a Donkey Kong title. However, we now know this second part isn’t accurate.

In an interview with IGN, Kenta Motokura—producer of Donkey Kong Bananza and director of Super Mario Odyssey—shared how Bananza came to be. According to him, Nintendo executive Yoshiaki Koizumi approached the Odyssey team and specifically asked them to explore creating a 3D Donkey Kong game.

When Motokura shared this detail, I asked whether Koizumi had explained why, especially since Nintendo hadn’t internally developed a Donkey Kong game since Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat over two decades ago. Motokura didn’t want to speak on Koizumi's behalf, but he speculated: "Given Nintendo’s wide array of characters, we’re always considering the right timing to introduce a new game featuring a particular character to delight our fans. But that’s just my personal guess—you’d really need to ask Mr. Koizumi for the official answer."

Whatever Koizumi's reasoning, the Odyssey team accepted the challenge. Their first step was consulting Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto for ideas.

“He emphasized the unique actions a powerful character like Donkey Kong could perform, such as the hand slap or exhaling forcefully,” Motokura explained.

“I also spoke with Mr. Koizumi, who directed Jungle Beat. He highlighted Donkey Kong’s long, muscular arms as a key difference compared to characters like Mario. With all these traits in mind, we explored how to translate Donkey Kong’s distinctive abilities into engaging gameplay.”

During this period, one programmer on the Odyssey team experimented with voxel technology. Voxels are essentially 3D pixels, and this programmer was testing ways to let players reshape the environment using them. For instance, a scaled-down version of this technology was used in Super Mario Odyssey’s Luncheon Kingdom, where Mario digs through cheese, and in the Snow Kingdom, where he crunches through snow. But the programmer expanded on this, enabling players to throw voxels or carve tunnels through them.

Motokura explained that these experiments, combined with discussions about Donkey Kong's strength and abilities, inspired the core destruction mechanics in Donkey Kong Bananza.

"Once we recognized how well Donkey Kong's unique traits—his power and long arms—complemented the creative potential of voxel technology, we knew destruction would be a compelling central gameplay theme for this title."

We discussed more with Motokura and director Kazuya Takahashi, including Bananza’s place in the Donkey Kong series and the decision to release it on the Nintendo Switch 2. You can read our full interview here and check out our hands-on preview of the game here.