Nintendo has finally confirmed the development team behind Donkey Kong Bananza — and as many fans had suspected, the upcoming Switch 2 blockbuster is being made by the team who previously worked on Super Mario Odyssey.
In a presentation attended by IGN ahead of a new Donkey Kong Bananza hands-on preview, Nintendo said that the same staff who worked on Odyssey also developed this new DK title.
The confirmation comes after Nintendo previously held off from stating which of its teams were behind the game, even after Bananza was playable publicly at the Switch 2’s global launch tour.
Still, the news will likely come as no surprise. Fans had suspected Odyssey’s talented developers were likely working on DK’s impressive-looking turn in the spotlight, and had pointed to various links between the two titles — not least their shared focus on the character Pauline — as clues to their creators.
Odyssey, released for Switch in October 2017, was helmed by Super Mario 3D World director Kenta Motokura, and produced by both Super Mario Galaxy director Yoshiaki Koizumi and Super Mario Galaxy 2 director Koichi Hayashida.
Nintendo did not state specifically whether all or only some of the Odyssey team were back for Donkey Kong Bananza — and fans will likely be keen to know about Koizumi’s involvement here in particular.
A key figure involved in the creation and promotion of the original Nintendo Switch, Koizumi was surprisingly absent from the announcement of Switch 2. A Nintendo veteran with more than three decades of experience at the company, Koizumi began his career as an illustrator, before rising through the ranks to serve as director on the GameCube’s flagship platformer Super Mario Sunshine. Koizumi has continued to work as a key figure on every subsequent 3D Mario game, including as director of Super Mario Galaxy, and then producer for Galaxy 2, 3D Land, 3D World and Odyssey.
Odyssey remains Nintendo’s most recent 3D Mario effort, with no suggestion as yet on when the company plans to launch another. Confirmation that Odyssey team members have been busy building Bananza will inevitably spark questions over whether a new 3D Mario game for Switch 2 is also being developed in parallel, or is still further off than some had expected. A closer look at Bananza’s staff list and their roles, once the game launches, may provide further clues.
For now, it’s simply interesting to note that Nintendo’s blockbuster Mario team have built a Donkey Kong game for Switch 2’s launch year — a slot that’s often reserved for Mario platformers.
As for Bananza’s links to Odyssey, the Switch platformer notably reintroduced Pauline as a major Mario character for the first time in years, and cast her as the music-loving mayor of New Donk City who performs the game’s toe-tapping Jump Up Super Star! track.
In Bananza, a younger version of Pauline acts as DK’s sidekick, and uses her growing singing prowess as a power-up. Nintendo previously took the rare step of confirming the age of this younger Pauline, and some fans have suggested that Bananza is now being lined up as an Odyssey prequel — and potentially even a precursor to the original Mario arcade game, where Pauline had to be rescued from DK’s clutches.
Donkey Kong Bananza launches on July 17, 2025 as this summer’s key Switch 2 title from Nintendo, before the arrival Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokémon Legends Z-A later this year.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
