Latest news with #KentaMotokura
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Top Bananza! Donkey Kong's long-awaited return is a literal smash-hit
When you think of Nintendo, it's almost impossible not to picture Donkey Kong. The ape that started it all, Donkey Kong's tie-donning, barrel-launching arcade antics introduced Mario to the world and almost bankrupted Nintendo in the process, after a near-miss legal battle over alleged King Kong copyright infringement. Yet despite Donkers' undeniable place in gaming history – and obligatory appearances in Smash Bros and Mario Kart – for the last few console generations, Donkey Kong platformers have been MIA. Enter DK's first standalone adventure in 11 years, Donkey Kong Bananza. While Mario's recent adventures saw him exploring the reaches of outer space or deftly possessing enemies with an anthropomorphic hat, DK's grand return is all about primal rage. Employing a similar voxel-based technology to Minecraft, DK's Switch 2 adventure swaps the former's thoughtful Lego-esque world-building for gleeful destruction, letting players shatter every colourful level into smithereens. As you smash and punch your way through walls, floors and ceilings, you can burrow all the way to the ground below, forging new paths and unearthing hidden treasures. It's a novel and enjoyably chaotic twist on the usually neatly ordered Nintendo platformer. 'Bananza started when my superior, Koizumi-san, came to our team and asked us if we could create a 3D Donkey Kong game,' recalls Donkey Kong Bananza producer and Super Mario Odyssey director, Kenta Motokura. It was a full-circle moment, he tells me, with the plastic bongo-controlled Donkey Kong Jungle Beat starting off his career at Nintendo 25 years earlier. 'The first time I ever played Donkey Kong was on Game and Watch, but as Donkey Kong became 3D, I started working on 3D games myself,' he says. 'In Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Koizumi-san was director and I learned a lot from him in terms of taking on new challenges and figuring out the characteristics of Donkey Kong.' The question was, with Donkey Kong's last foray into 3D being on the Nintendo 64, where would Nintendo take its monkey mascot next? Seeking wisdom from Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Motokura's old boss, it wasn't long until the team were drawn to DK's gigantic, furry hands. 'Speaking with Miyamoto-san, who had worked on the original and on developing the DK games with Rare, he said that he had focused on the power and the actions of Donkey Kong, such as the hand claps,' Motokura says. 'We were testing voxel technology – we were actually using it in Super Mario Odyssey – and we thought that by bringing together and combining the power of Donkey Kong and the voxel technology, it would fit together with the theme of destruction.' Motokura and the Super Mario Odyssey team had their fair share of 3D platformer experience. But Bananza's game director Kazuya Takahashi, who joined the project midway through development, had only worked on open world RPGs. 'It wasn't too intimidating,' Takahashi says about the pressure of reviving Donkey Kong, 'because the team had worked on Odyssey as well, there were a lot of people on the team who had skills related to 3D platform action games.' Yet even with the team's platforming pedigree, the voxel-based destruction presented a unique challenge for Nintendo's Tokyo team. 'For this sort of game, where you can destroy anything, there was no precedent,' Takahashi says. 'So in that sense, we did struggle with various things. Developing the levels was quite challenging. For each stage, we wanted to make sure that the level would be fun even without that destruction element.' Luckily, the team wasn't going in blind – they had help from an all-star playtester. 'We had Miyamoto-san check the game occasionally,' says Motokura. 'But instead of progressing through the game, he just stuck to one point, smashing and digging around a lot. It was a good thing to see him playing that way … it proved that there are a lot of things that players could potentially be curious about in the game.' To many Nintendo fans, there is no Mario or Donkey Kong without Nintendo veterans like Miyamoto or Takashi Tezuka, but the next generation of developers tell me they're more than ready to carry on their mentors' legacy. 'Longtime developers like Miyamoto-san and Teztuka-san also allow us younger developers to discuss things on the same level, so in that sense, I think a lot of ideas are going to be shared among the developers,' Motokura says. 'Newer, younger developers are also going to carry on the legacy of the developing that we do at Nintendo.' 'Although I joined this team partway through, I really enjoyed the work that I was able to do on this team, and that Nintendo was very open to being able to explore these kinds of new and challenging concepts,' Takahashi reflects. 'Having the freedom to find your own shortcuts in Bananza … In that sense, there's an expanded level of freedom compared with Odyssey and we were really able to provide a completely new kind of gaming experience.' Like most millenials, I've been reliving my mispent youth via the ultimate piece of playable noughties nostalgia: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4. While there are some disappointing soundtrack omissions (and a bizarrely stripped-down take on 4's original sandbox campaign), grinding and kickflipping your way across Rio, London, Canada and Alcatraz is still as compulsive as it was in the early 2000s. While players of the originals might grimace at the lack of Alien Ant Farm, Papa Roach and Less Than Jake, the addition of Denzel Curry, Turnstile, Fontaines DC, Drain, Vince Staples and Mastodon – whisper it – almost makes up for it. Almost. This time around, I've opted to flail and face-plant on Nintendo's shiny new Switch 2. One of the first third-party releases on the platform, it's a surprisingly solid port, allowing me to take my trick-tastic escapades with me wherever I go. Here's hoping future Switch 2 ports fare as well. Ultimately, while this isn't quite as lovingly made as Vicarious Vision's 2020 1+2 remakes, when you're in the zone and have that six-figure high score going, Pro Skater is still an arcade-like thrill that satisfies like little else. Available on: Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, PCEstimated playtime: 20-2,000 hours, depending on how gnarly you are Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Stop Killing Games, a petition dedicated to preserving online media, has received 1.2m signatures, prompting a response from one of the vice-presidents of the European parliament, Nicolae Ștefănuță. The initiative seeks to highlight consumer rights and navigate the complexities of 'ownership' in a world where live service games are turned off. A noble fight, but I'm still a little shocked that this has all kicked off because of The Crew, of all games. You can read more on PC Gamer. Did you miss out on nabbing anything from the PS5 30th Anniversary range last year? Fear not, fellow stuff lovers, as these retro PS1-inspired controllers, consoles and PS Portals are getting a restock on 21 July. I absolutely adore my anniversary controller, so I thought I'd selflessly share the news. Get all the details over on Eurogamer. After laying off thousands of its workforce, several Xbox employees have added salt to the wound by endorsing AI, in two rather tonally insensitive LinkedIn posts. In one, a publishing lead suggested that laid-off employees should turn to AI for career guidance, while in the second, Xbox posted a job advertisement that clearly used an AI image. Aftermath has a suitably depressing summary of events. 'The way a child plays is the way they live': how therapists are using video games to help vulnerable children 'It fully altered my taste in music': bands reflect on the awesome power of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater soundtracks Cosy video games are on an unstoppable rise. Will they unleash a darker side? Gaming in their golden years: why millions of seniors are playing video games Reader P Holck asks this question about how to bridge the generational gaming divide: 'I used to really enjoy my son's Civilization III. Now I've bought a PlayStation 5 and thought I'd play some modern and more active games. But the ones I've tried are simply too hard – I get stuck and have no idea how to move forward! What games do you recommend for a 70-plus player?' First, congratulations on taking the playable plunge! Much like encountering a genre of music for the first time – or, heaven help you, getting into anime – reconnecting with gaming can often feel overwhelming. Finding genres that you click with can be challenging – let alone having to learn the increasingly complex control schemes, gameplay mechanics and visual cues that longtime players take for granted. It's hardly an action-packed experience, but a game I'd recommend if you liked the original is Tetris Effect – which takes the classic block-dropping puzzler and adds a psychedelic visual layer, taking you on a weirdly profound journey. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and 2018's God Of War are both good action games to start with. They are fun story-led epics, and the gameplay is fairly simple at lower difficulty settings, giving you a good grasp of third-person game mechanics. If you want something a bit deeper, The Witcher 3 is a brilliantly immersive RPG, as is Baldur's Gate 3 – the latter of which comes with the option of pausing combat to help make the action more manageable, and the Mass Effect trilogy offers a nice blend of turn-based RPG choices and third-person action. Last year's Astro Bot is a jolt of colourful, platforming-based serotonin. If you're after something a little scarier, the Resident Evil 4 remake and The Last Of Us Part 1 are modern masterpieces, and again, have lower difficulty settings to help ease you in. Best of luck – let us know how you get on. If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Top Bananza! Donkey Kong's long-awaited return is a literal smash-hit
When you think of Nintendo, it's almost impossible not to picture Donkey Kong. The ape that started it all, Donkey Kong's tie-donning, barrel-launching arcade antics introduced Mario to the world and almost bankrupted Nintendo in the process, after a near-miss legal battle over alleged King Kong copyright infringement. Yet despite Donkers' undeniable place in gaming history – and obligatory appearances in Smash Bros and Mario Kart – for the last few console generations, Donkey Kong platformers have been MIA. Enter DK's first standalone adventure in 11 years, Donkey Kong Bananza. While Mario's recent adventures saw him exploring the reaches of outer space or deftly possessing enemies with an anthropomorphic hat, DK's grand return is all about primal rage. Employing a similar voxel-based technology to Minecraft, DK's Switch 2 adventure swaps the former's thoughtful Lego-esque world-building for gleeful destruction, letting players shatter every colourful level into smithereens. As you smash and punch your way through walls, floors and ceilings, you can burrow all the way to the ground below, forging new paths and unearthing hidden treasures. It's a novel and enjoyably chaotic twist on the usually neatly ordered Nintendo platformer. 'Bananza started when my superior, Koizumi-san, came to our team and asked us if we could create a 3D Donkey Kong game,' recalls Donkey Kong Bananza producer and Super Mario Odyssey director, Kenta Motokura. It was a full-circle moment, he tells me, with the plastic bongo-controlled Donkey Kong Jungle Beat starting off his career at Nintendo 25 years earlier. 'The first time I ever played Donkey Kong was on Game and Watch, but as Donkey Kong became 3D, I started working on 3D games myself,' he says. 'In Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Koizumi-san was director and I learned a lot from him in terms of taking on new challenges and figuring out the characteristics of Donkey Kong.' The question was, with Donkey Kong's last foray into 3D being on the Nintendo 64, where would Nintendo take its monkey mascot next? Seeking wisdom from Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Motokura's old boss, it wasn't long until the team were drawn to DK's gigantic, furry hands. 'Speaking with Miyamoto-san, who had worked on the original and on developing the DK games with Rare, he said that he had focused on the power and the actions of Donkey Kong, such as the hand claps,' Motokura says. 'We were testing voxel technology – we were actually using it in Super Mario Odyssey – and we thought that by bringing together and combining the power of Donkey Kong and the voxel technology, it would fit together with the theme of destruction.' Motokura and the Super Mario Odyssey team had their fair share of 3D platformer experience. But Bananza's game director Kazuya Takahashi, who joined the project midway through development, had only worked on open world RPGs. 'It wasn't too intimidating,' Takahashi says about the pressure of reviving Donkey Kong, 'because the team had worked on Odyssey as well, there were a lot of people on the team who had skills related to 3D platform action games.' Yet even with the team's platforming pedigree, the voxel-based destruction presented a unique challenge for Nintendo's Tokyo team. 'For this sort of game, where you can destroy anything, there was no precedent,' Takahashi says. 'So in that sense, we did struggle with various things. Developing the levels was quite challenging. For each stage, we wanted to make sure that the level would be fun even without that destruction element.' Luckily, the team wasn't going in blind – they had help from an all-star playtester. 'We had Miyamoto-san check the game occasionally,' says Motokura. 'But instead of progressing through the game, he just stuck to one point, smashing and digging around a lot. It was a good thing to see him playing that way … it proved that there are a lot of things that players could potentially be curious about in the game.' To many Nintendo fans, there is no Mario or Donkey Kong without Nintendo veterans like Miyamoto or Takashi Tezuka, but the next generation of developers tell me they're more than ready to carry on their mentors' legacy. 'Longtime developers like Miyamoto-san and Teztuka-san also allow us younger developers to discuss things on the same level, so in that sense, I think a lot of ideas are going to be shared among the developers,' Motokura says. 'Newer, younger developers are also going to carry on the legacy of the developing that we do at Nintendo.' 'Although I joined this team partway through, I really enjoyed the work that I was able to do on this team, and that Nintendo was very open to being able to explore these kinds of new and challenging concepts,' Takahashi reflects. 'Having the freedom to find your own shortcuts in Bananza … In that sense, there's an expanded level of freedom compared with Odyssey and we were really able to provide a completely new kind of gaming experience.' Like most millenials, I've been reliving my mispent youth via the ultimate piece of playable noughties nostalgia: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4. While there are some disappointing soundtrack omissions (and a bizarrely stripped-down take on 4's original sandbox campaign), grinding and kickflipping your way across Rio, London, Canada and Alcatraz is still as compulsive as it was in the early 2000s. While players of the originals might grimace at the lack of Alien Ant Farm, Papa Roach and Less Than Jake, the addition of Denzel Curry, Turnstile, Fontaines DC, Drain, Vince Staples and Mastodon – whisper it – almost makes up for it. Almost. This time around, I've opted to flail and face-plant on Nintendo's shiny new Switch 2. One of the first third-party releases on the platform, it's a surprisingly solid port, allowing me to take my trick-tastic escapades with me wherever I go. Here's hoping future Switch 2 ports fare as well. Ultimately, while this isn't quite as lovingly made as Vicarious Vision's 2020 1+2 remakes, when you're in the zone and have that six-figure high score going, Pro Skater is still an arcade-like thrill that satisfies like little else. Available on: Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, PCEstimated playtime: 20-2,000 hours, depending on how gnarly you are Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Stop Killing Games, a petition dedicated to preserving online media, has received 1.2m signatures, prompting a response from one of the vice-presidents of the European parliament, Nicolae Ștefănuță. The initiative seeks to highlight consumer rights and navigate the complexities of 'ownership' in a world where live service games are turned off. A noble fight, but I'm still a little shocked that this has all kicked off because of The Crew, of all games. You can read more on PC Gamer. Did you miss out on nabbing anything from the PS5 30th Anniversary range last year? Fear not, fellow stuff lovers, as these retro PS1-inspired controllers, consoles and PS Portals are getting a restock on 21 July. I absolutely adore my anniversary controller, so I thought I'd selflessly share the news. Get all the details over on Eurogamer. After laying off thousands of its workforce, several Xbox employees have added salt to the wound by endorsing AI, in two rather tonally insensitive LinkedIn posts. In one, a publishing lead suggested that laid-off employees should turn to AI for career guidance, while in the second, Xbox posted a job advertisement that clearly used an AI image. Aftermath has a suitably depressing summary of events. 'The way a child plays is the way they live': how therapists are using video games to help vulnerable children 'It fully altered my taste in music': bands reflect on the awesome power of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater soundtracks Cosy video games are on an unstoppable rise. Will they unleash a darker side? Gaming in their golden years: why millions of seniors are playing video games Reader P Holck asks this question about how to bridge the generational gaming divide: 'I used to really enjoy my son's Civilization III. Now I've bought a PlayStation 5 and thought I'd play some modern and more active games. But the ones I've tried are simply too hard – I get stuck and have no idea how to move forward! What games do you recommend for a 70-plus player?' First, congratulations on taking the playable plunge! Much like encountering a genre of music for the first time – or, heaven help you, getting into anime – reconnecting with gaming can often feel overwhelming. Finding genres that you click with can be challenging – let alone having to learn the increasingly complex control schemes, gameplay mechanics and visual cues that longtime players take for granted. It's hardly an action-packed experience, but a game I'd recommend if you liked the original is Tetris Effect – which takes the classic block-dropping puzzler and adds a psychedelic visual layer, taking you on a weirdly profound journey. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and 2018's God Of War are both good action games to start with. They are fun story-led epics, and the gameplay is fairly simple at lower difficulty settings, giving you a good grasp of third-person game mechanics. If you want something a bit deeper, The Witcher 3 is a brilliantly immersive RPG, as is Baldur's Gate 3 – the latter of which comes with the option of pausing combat to help make the action more manageable, and the Mass Effect trilogy offers a nice blend of turn-based RPG choices and third-person action. Last year's Astro Bot is a jolt of colourful, platforming-based serotonin. If you're after something a little scarier, the Resident Evil 4 remake and The Last Of Us Part 1 are modern masterpieces, and again, have lower difficulty settings to help ease you in. Best of luck – let us know how you get on. If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Donkey Kong: Bonanza Leak Copies, New Details, And A Potential DK Movie
Donkey Kong Bonanza early copies were accidentally sold this weekend, as Nintendo eyes to make a DK movie. Donkey Kong is making headlines this morning, with multiple outlets providing updates on the famous game gorilla. Donkey Kong Bonanza early copies were accidentally sold this weekend, as Nintendo is eyeing a DK movie. Donkey Kong Bonanza producer Kenta Motokura also shared new development insights about the game's development. The game is still set to officially release on Thursday, July 17. Social media flooded the internet with users posting their early copies of the Nintendo Switch 2 game Donkey Kong Bonanza, over the weekend. The worst part of the leak was that screenshots of unannounced game content were already being shared. For those looking to avoid spoilers before the game's release on Thursday, players should avoid social media or create a list of blocked topics. The last official update on the game revealed long-time series character Pauline would be joining DK on his adventure. In a recent interview with La Vanguardia, Donkey Kong Bonanza producer Motokura stated, 'this was the right time to develop this game.' This game provides a major update to the titular Nintendo gorilla because the last 3D game featuring him was Donkey Kong 64. Otherwise, the iconic character was only seen as a playable character in party games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or Mario Kart 8/World. When asked when development began, Motokura replied: 'Although I can't give you very precise details, I can tell you that we started developing it after finishing Super Mario Odyssey,' Motokura shared (via machine translation). Game director Kazuya Takahashi added how the game's focus on destruction was only made possible on the Nintendo Switch 2: 'As we mentioned before, we wanted to generate continuity through chain destruction, and to do this, we needed to place a large number of destructible objects,' said Takahashi. 'This was only possible on Switch 2, which allowed so many elements to be placed on the screen, as well as different materials and large-scale destruction. In addition to increasing the feeling of satisfaction when destroying, we have put a lot of care into the effects and sounds, and also in the appearance of the objects that are destroyed.' CGMagazine's EIC, Brendan Frye, had the opportunity to check out Donkey Kong Bonanza early, praising the elements Takahashi mentioned. 'It's amazing to see Donkey Kong Bananza running so well on the Nintendo Switch 2, especially with the level of destructibility and environmental detail,' Frye wrote. Whether players on July 17th will enjoy the game's new look and destructive nature is still to be determined. On the film side, Nintendo and Universal Pictures registered the copyright for a Donkey Kong film, suggesting the forthcoming Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel and Legend of Zelda film could be followed by Nintendo's gorilla. At the moment, the movie details are sparse. So far, the copyright is the only detail confirmed. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa recently talked about potential upcoming movie productions in an investor call. Furukawa was asked about the future of the 'visual content business' or films, essentially. The president replied that the company has been 'working on initiatives beyond our dedicated video game platforms for several years' and that it's 'deeply involved in production…Although we cannot discuss our plans beyond The Legend of Zelda movie at this time, we are working on various other projects.' A Donkey Kong film would certainly make sense. The gorilla is a prominent character in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, voiced by Seth Rogan, and will likely feature in the sequel—expected to be called Super Mario World. DK seems to be getting a (re)glow-up, as the Mario sequel film is set to release in April 2026.
The Verge
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Nintendo created Donkey Kong's biggest adventure by breaking everything
The creation of Donkey Kong Bananza started with destruction. 'What we were really going for was this gameplay experience that comes from destruction,' Bananza director Kazuya Takahashi says in an interview with The Verge. From that simple premise, Bananza's creators have built an entire game about breaking stuff. Bananza is the second major Switch 2 exclusive from Nintendo, and it's made by the same developers that worked on Super Mario Odyssey, one of the games that came out during the launch window of the original Switch. According to the developers on Bananza, Donkey Kong's appetite for destruction didn't start with his beloved bananas, as one might expect, but with cheese. 'We had used voxel technology in Super Mario Odyssey,' says Bananza producer Kenta Motokura. 'For example, in the luncheon kingdom, you can dig through large piles of cheese, and in the snow kingdom, can plow your way through snow.' Voxels, simply put, are the chunks that make up a digital world. The same way a pixel represents the smallest unit of a flat digital image, a voxel is like the smallest unit of a 3D object, and a technology Nintendo was working with way back in the days of the original Switch. In fact, much like Mario Kart World before it, Bananza was originally planned to be an OG Switch title. 'We had in mind all of these possibilities using voxel technology,' says Motokura. 'But we realized when we learned about Switch 2 that there were even greater possibilities to explore.' Those greater possibilities were twofold: variety in the kinds of materials DK could smash and the ability to make that destruction persist. 'With the Switch 2, we found that we could create lots of different kinds of destructible objects,' says Takahashi. 'This created a very diverse experience of destruction within the game.' In Bananza, there's very little DK can't break, smashing through layers of rocks, mud, snow, thorns, and molten chocolate masquerading as lava. They fracture in different ways and make different sounds when hit. And rather than having a destroyed chunk of material reappear after some time, as some games with destructible environments do, the damage you do sticks. 'What's really important to that experience is that this destruction is continuous,' Takahashi continues. 'That you can destroy something and find something interesting behind it, and then destroy something behind that, and keep on going with new discoveries.' For the developers, another part of the Bananza puzzle was figuring out who Donkey Kong is now. He hasn't been the kind of character to go explorin' since his days of digging up bananas in Donkey Kong 64, 26 years ago. He's also rarely alone, accompanied by any number of Kong sidekicks or attached to whatever Mario and friends are doing at the time. He's not alone in Bananza either, this time palling around with a young Pauline. It makes sense that Pauline would accompany him, since in the deep Donkey Kong lore, Pauline was the woman he (or a younger version of Cranky Kong) kidnapped in the original Donkey Kong arcade game. But DK already has a gallery of sidekicks, and Motokura says that the subject of partners came up early in the development process, with Pauline being one of the potentials. 'Very early on this idea came up that Pauline would be a good choice in this case, but it wasn't implemented right away,' he says. Pauline's addition would only come later as the development team worked out the kinds of powers DK would use. There are animals Donkey Kong can transform into, with each animal giving him a unique power. His base form, which is simply DK himself, allows him to smash through harder materials, like concrete. The zebra form allows him to run over water and other crumbly materials. There are several animal powers DK can use, and the developers asked the music department to create special songs for each transformation. Pauline is a performer. We got a bit of that during the New Donk City performance in Super Mario Odyssey. Once it was established that music would initiate Donkey Kong's transformations, Pauline became a natural fit as a sidekick. 'From that idea,' Motokura says, 'suddenly it was like, 'Okay, well, then Pauline should be the one to sing.'' Pauline's music is just as integral to the game as DK's destruction. Her singing creates musical notes DK can follow to the next objective and it helps her communicate with the creatures they encounter. It even lets her get in on the destructive fun. 'We also have in co-op play the opportunity for a second player to control Pauline's voice blasts that affect enemies and the environment,' Motokura says. 'So a lot of unique gameplay ideas really just fell into place in Donkey Kong Bananza once we had placed Pauline as the accompanying character.' In Bananza, your job is to move fast and break things. It's baked into nearly every aspect of the game, right down to its UI, where selecting an option breaks the corresponding button into little pieces. And though the idea of 'just break stuff' seems like it'd be a little one-note to hang a game on, the developers have created a game in which you gotta break it to make it.
Metro
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Nintendo reveal Donkey Kong Bananza developer and it's a bit of a surprise
For months there's been no official indication of who's making Donkey Kong Bananza for Switch 2, but now Nintendo has finally spilt the beans. Although they've always been one of the most idiosyncratic game companies in the business, most of Nintendo's stranger habits are tolerated, or even encouraged, by fans. But not their recent insistence on trying to hide who makes their games. Around two years ago they stopped announcing who the developers are behind certain titles and made it hard to tell even once you played them, unless you sat through all the credits. Why they're being like this is a mystery but apart from being disrespectful it's made it hard to know what to expect from Donkey Kong Bananza. Names such as Luigi's Mansion developer Next Level Games have been suggested, as possibly being involved, but it's all been guesswork up until now, with Nintendo finally revealing that it's the same 'team' behind Super Mario Odyssey. They haven't made any kind of public annoucement, but we recently attended a preview event for the game and pointedly asked who was making it. We were told it was the Super Mario Odyssey team, but no clarification was given beyond that. Nintendo refused to say who the director is or to clarify what they meant by 'team'. Odyssey was made by Nintendo EPD, with some help from external studio 1-UP Studio (née Brownie Brown). EPD is the largest of Nintendo's internal development divisions and has many different groups, which are further subdivided into individual teams. Odyssey was by Production Group No. 8, which is based in Tokyo. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Taken as read, Nintendo's comment suggests that it is, more or less, the same team behind Odyssey that is making Bananza, but we can't help but wonder whether the word team is being used more loosely here, and it's actually the people behind Bowser's Fury. They're also part of Production Group No. 8 and Bowser's Fury was a very experimental bonus title, released alongside the remaster of Super Mario 3D World. It was a little rough around the edges but appeared to be the work of younger, up-and-coming developers. More Trending Nintendo never confirmed that but while this new comment has made it clear who isn't making Bananza, we're still very interested to know the exact people involved. If it is Odyssey director Kenta Motokura and/or co-producer Yoshiaki Koizumi that suggests that a new 3D Super Mario game is a long way off – or being made by a completely different team. There's so far been no hint whatsoever at a new Mario title and while Bananza does scratch something of the same itch it's a very different kind of game. A sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie is due out next April, so there's a good chance Nintendo is waiting until then to reveal anything, but as ever this new revelation only leads to more questions… Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Donkey Kong Bananza hands-on preview – from the makers of Super Mario Odyssey MORE: Halo team promises 'official scoop' on series' future later this year MORE: Fans call Steam Summer Sale 2025 'mid' but there's a reason it seems so bad
