Donkey Kong Bananza, the highly anticipated first-party game headed exclusively to the Nintendo Switch 2, is being headed up by the same development team that gave Nintendo fansSuper Mario Odysseyin 2017, and its director and producer have now been revealed. With just a week left until the launch ofDonkey Kong Bananza, Nintendo veteran Kenta Motokura has been identified as its producer with Kazuya Takahashi serving as director.
The Nintendo Switch 2 was released on June 5, and it’s proving to be incredibly popular, setting the pace for a potentially record-breaking run of console sales that could see it surpass its predecessor relatively quickly. But while the console itself is drawing a lot of attention, theSwitch 2 launch game lineupleft a lot to be desired among many fans, withMario Kart Worldserving as the only entry from an established Nintendo-owned franchise.
That desert ofSwitch 2 exclusiveswill become a little less dry with the release ofDonkey Kong Bananzaon July 07, 2025, and a newly published interview withIGNhas revealed that Motokura, the director ofSuper Mario Odyssey, is serving as the upcoming game’s producer. A 25-year veteran of Nintendo, Motokura first worked onPokemon Stadium 2as a 2DCG designer and has also played a part in the development of classic games likePikmin,Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, andBig Brain Academy. But it’s theMariofranchise that takes up the bulk of his resume, as he’s served as director ofSuper Mario 3D WorldandSuper Mario Odyssey, producer ofSuper Mario 3D All-Stars, and design director ofSuper Mario Galaxy 2andSuper Mario 3D Land, in addition to various development roles on other games.
Donkey Kong Bananza’s Team Has a Wealth of Mario-Releated Experience
Takahashi, by comparison, is much newer to Nintendo, but he has worked there for five years and brings with him a lot of experience indesigning open-world games. That sounds like it will be beneficial toDonkey Kong Bananza’s design, as Takahashi noted that the openness of its levels and their fully destructible environments will provide a lot of opportunities for making new discoveries. “And on one level, similar toSuper Mario Odyssey, each level has to be fun just if you’re playing through it the normal way without doing a lot of destruction,” he noted during the interview.
With similar development teams, fans may expect to see some of the same style of familiar gameplay fromSuper Mario OdysseyinDonkey Kong Bananza. Motokura confirmed that there are some similarities between the two games, such as their use of voxel-based visuals, except the newer game utilizes them to a much greater degree. The biggest difference players should expect, though, is the selection ofabilities inDonkey Kong Bananza, which Motokura described as being designed to fit Donkey Kong’s physical strength and arm reach.
