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Donkey Kong Bananza Devs on Game's Big Debut

by Emery Oct 26,2025

Donkey Kong Bananza arrives next week, and we've only just discovered the developers behind Donkey Kong's major new 3D adventure. It's the same team responsible for Super Mario Odyssey, something many sharp-eyed fans had already guessed based on UI elements and other contextual clues from the trailers.

Now that we know the creators, it's time to shower them with a mountain of banana-related questions.

I spoke with Kenta Motokura, the producer of Donkey Kong Bananza, and Kazuya Takahashi, the director. You might recognize Motokura as the director of Super Mario Odyssey; he has also contributed to several other Nintendo titles since joining as a 3D character artist during the GameCube era, working on games like Super Mario Sunshine, Pikmin, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Land, and Super Mario 3D World on Wii U. As for Takahashi, he's relatively new to Nintendo, having joined in 2020, but brings open-world game design experience that he says provides some "interesting" connections to Bananza.

We've covered key parts of this interview elsewhere, including how the game was conceived, where it fits in the Donkey Kong series, and why it's a Nintendo Switch 2 title. But the full interview contains many more golden nuggets (or bananas), which we've published below.

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

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