Donkey Kong Bananza Devs wanted to do things Mario couldn't do

While there are some similarities between Super Mario Odyssey and Donkey Kong Bananza, both games offer different mechanics when it comes to platforming. Odyssey relies on Cappy to borrow powers to help Mario reach new heights, while Bananza uses Donkey Kong's brute strength to literally blast through levels.

The same team at Nintendo worked on both games, but wanted to make sure they both felt very different. That's easier said than done, though, as both Odyssey and Bananza feature open-world levels and 3D platforming. Producer Kenta Motokura explained how the developers provided a different approach for the latter.

Nintendo made sure gameplay like Mario and Donkey Kong felt very different

Key art for Donkey Kong Bananza, showing Donkey Kong slamming into the ground below him with a wild expression on his face.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at GDC 2026, Motokura revealed that Bananza's destruction mechanics were “motivated by thinking about, 'Well, what kind of things can't a human do? What kind of things can't Mario do? What kind of scale of destruction would you only see from Donkey Kong when he's punching rocks and stuff?'

He explained that the team approached Shigeru Miyamoto and Yoshiaki Koizumi early in Bananza's development to discuss features that would differentiate Donkey Kong from Mario. These discussions eventually evolved into ideas for gameplay and what kind of technology could be used to bring those ideas to life.

The development team paid a lot of attention to comparing the two characters in terms of their individual appeal to players. Considering the DK's large and muscular build, breaking through the environment made for a great gaming feature. This, along with hidden secrets and player freedom, made the destruction mechanic an absolute hit with fans.

“You can definitely have really fun experiences in Mario games and really fun experiences in Donkey Kong games,” Motokura added. “But we want to find the differences between the two IPs and really show that as a variety that people will enjoy. And that includes the style of the game.”

Motokura also said that some of Bananza's ideas “will provide future guidance for our next project to get things right.”