Donkey Kong Bananza arrives next week, and we've just discovered the team behind Donkey Kong's major new 3D adventure. It's the same group that created Super Mario Odyssey, something many observant fans deduced from UI elements and other clues in the trailers.
Now that we know the creators, it's time to shower them with a whole hoard of banana-related questions.
I spoke with Kenta Motokura, producer of Donkey Kong Bananza, and Kazuya Takahashi, the director. Motokura's name may be familiar as the director of Super Mario Odyssey. He has contributed to numerous other Nintendo games since joining as a 3D character artist in the GameCube era, working on titles like Super Mario Sunshine, Pikmin, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Land, and Super Mario 3D World on Wii U. Takahashi is more recent to Nintendo, arriving in 2020, but brings open-world game design experience that he says provides some "interesting" carryover into Bananza.
We've highlighted key parts of this interview elsewhere, covering the game's conception, its place in the Donkey Kong series, and why it's a Nintendo Switch 2 title. However, the full conversation below contains many more golden nuggets (or bananas).
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
