The legendary Shigeru Miyamoto has spoken about wanting to redesign Donkey Kong to make the courageous ape “more expressive” in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza.
“So when it comes to character creation and working with characters, I still take an active role in that. And looking back to the first generation Donkey Kong Country, we worked with Rare to create Donkey Kong Country,” Miyamoto explained to IGN.
“When we were talking about trying to create new versions, evolving Donkey Kong, we created the game called Jungle Beat. We worked together with the team that made 3D Mario. With the technology that was available at the time, we were able to make Donkey Kong more expressive. And going back to the design that Rare came up with, we reevaluated; what can we do with the design to make it more expressive? And then when it comes to the movie, we decided to move forward with this new generation Donkey Kong design.”
In Donkey Kong Bananza, you must help Donkey Kong make his way through the depths of the underground world, competing to collect Golden Bananas before a mysterious group called VoidCo can get their paws on them.
Promising an adventure “full of mayhem, surprises and bananas,” you can crash, bash and climb through nearly everything in Donkey Kong’s path – tearing off chunks of terrain to swing around and throw.
The more that you demolish with Donkey Kong’s powerful punches, the more areas open up for you to discover further secrets to reward your pulverising efforts.
Donkey Kong Bananza will be released at retail and digitally on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo Switch 2 worldwide on 17 July 2025.
