Donkey Kong Bananza: Inside the Smash-Everything Game From Mario Odyssey's Team

In most platformers, walls tell you where you cannot go. In Donkey Kong Bananza, they are a suggestion. Almost everything can be punched, dug through or torn up and thrown, and the game is built around that single, joyful idea.

Released on July 17, 2025 for Nintendo Switch 2, Bananza scored 91 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic, won Best Family Game at The Game Awards 2025, was nominated for Game of the Year, and had sold 5.05 million copies by September 30, 2026, making it the console's second best-selling game.

The Odyssey team's next act

Bananza was made by the Nintendo EPD group that had just finished Super Mario Odyssey (2017). Odyssey's director, Kenta Motokura, produced it, and its programmer Wataru Tanaka co-directed with Kazuya Takahashi. Nintendo veteran Yoshiaki Koizumi requested the project, and Shigeru Miyamoto gave input.

Like Mario Kart World, it started on the original Switch and moved to the new console, around 2021, because of memory limits. Destruction on this scale needs a lot of memory.

Five animals and a song

DK's toolkit grows through five animal transformations, powered by an energy meter:

• Gorilla: raw strength for smashing
• Zebra: speed
• Ostrich: gliding and egg bombs
• Elephant: inhaling terrain and spitting it out
• Snake: higher jumps

The transformations are triggered with help from Pauline, reimagined here as a 13-year-old singer. Her voice activates powers and breaks seals, and in two-player co-op via GameShare, the second player controls her and fires explosive projectiles. She is also the only character in the game who speaks a real language.

Collecting is optional but deep: there are up to 1,000 Banandium Gems, with 777 tracked as unique collectibles.

A new look and an old enemy

DK himself looks different. His redesigned face first appeared in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and in Mario Kart World, and Bananza is the first game built around it. The villain is a familiar one: King K. Rool, in his first Donkey Kong game since DK: Jungle Climber in 2007.

Critics loved the destruction and the sense of discovery. The most common complaints were about the camera, which can struggle underground, occasional frame-rate dips and a less polished co-op mode.

DLC and the awards season

A paid add-on, DK Island & Emerald Rush, arrived on September 12, 2025 for $20. It reviewed less well than the main game, with a "mixed or average" rating on Metacritic.

At The Game Awards 2025, Bananza shared the Game of the Year shortlist with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, Hades II, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and took home Best Family Game.

Why it matters

Donkey Kong had not starred in a big 3D adventure since Donkey Kong 64 in 1999. Bananza did not just revive him; it gave Switch 2 its first original showcase, a game whose central idea depends on the new hardware.

WGC's take: this is the most purely fun game on Switch 2. Skip the DLC unless you are a completionist, but do not miss the main game. Read more in our Switch 2 first-party guide and our Mario Kart World story.