Donkey Kong Bananza is the second major first-party release for the Nintendo Switch 2, following Mario Kart World, which was bundled with the console at release.
We know that Mario Kart World was originally going to be released for the Switch, but the team behind the project were unhappy with the technical compromises they were making, and were happy to switch to developing the game for the Switch 2 mid-development cycle.
As it turns out, a similar situation occurred during the development of Donkey Kong Bananza, which we now know was developed by Nintendo EPD, the team behind Super Mario Odyssey.
In an interview with IGN, Kenta Motokura and Kazuya Takahashi, respectively producer and director of Donkey Kong Bananza, revealed that the upcoming game was originally in development for the Switch 2's predecessor.
"So, this game originally began its development cycle on Nintendo Switch 1 and at the time, we were still using voxel technology and thinking of lots of different ideas for applications," Motokura explained. "But when we learned about the Switch 2 development, we realised that the best implementation of these ideas and technology would be on Nintendo Switch 2."
Takahashi then explained that the...
