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Nintendo has revealed the core design principles of 'Donkey Kong Bananza' directly through its development leads. Released on July 17, 2025, for the Switch 2, Donkey Kong Bananza is the first authentic 3D Donkey Kong title in over two decades.
At a session during the Japanese game developer conference CEDEC 2026 on the 23rd, the game's Director and Planning Director Kazuya Takahashi and Director and Program Director Wataru Tanaka gave a lecture on the game cycle that leads to a chain reaction of destruction.
The two explained that they applied the singular concept of 'destruction' to every element of the action game—including characters, cameras, placements, items, and transformations—designing a chain structure where one act of destruction leads to the next.
The game features Donkey Kong and voxel technology as its two pillars, aiming to be a 3D action game where everything visible can be destroyed. The core lies in using voxel technology—a 3D version of pixels—to allow players to destroy and explore not just the surface of the terrain, but its interior as well. The development team explained that the project was built on the foundation of the Super Mario Odyssey team and fully implemented the voxel technology that was only partially used in Odyssey.
Destruction Born from Donkey Kong and Voxels
Takahashi presented the game's themes as Donkey Kong and voxel technology. He highlighted Donkey Kong's signature thick, powerful arms and new actions, while aiming for gameplay where players can interact with terrain and everything in sight using voxel technology.
Voxels are 3D versions of pixels, consisting of data-filled boxes arranged in 3D space. This allows for interactions at a more granular level than standard objects. This technology was used partially in Super Mario Odyssey for things like snow that breaks upon impact or targets destroyed by a hammer, but the team delved deeper into it after completing Odyssey. Early experimental footage showed the ability to freely smash terrain, detach fragments to use as weapons, and throw them to stick to walls.
Having confirmed the potential for new interactions in the ability to destroy terrain anywhere, the team finalized the concept as 'destruction.' Donkey Kong Bananza signifies a 3D action game where everything can be destroyed.
The team focused on the chain of destruction. In early verification footage, allowing enemies to be destroyed at the voxel level enhanced interaction but felt lacking as a 'destruction game.' Consequently, they designed it so that Donkey Kong's strength sends enemies flying, and those flying enemies then smash into voxel terrain. They determined that this chain of destruction would become the core of future gameplay.
In the final product, this chain is implemented as a 'Destruction -> Reward' structure. Destroying an enemy causes them to hit the terrain behind them (such as bedrock or ore veins), triggering additional destruction, which in turn breaks the terrain and leads to massive gold rewards. In another example, a concrete wall that cannot be broken with a normal punch can be shattered by launching an enemy into it, opening a path to a new area. Here, the reward includes not just gold or items, but the discovery of new locations itself.
By leveraging the game's unique feature that everything can be destroyed, various chains are possible in the same situation, such as using fragments detached from the terrain to break concrete walls or digging under a wall to escape. In essence, destruction leads to the reward of discovery. Takahashi summarized this as a cyclical structure: you can destroy and utilize anything anywhere, leading to further destruction, which connects to exploration rewards, and because there are rewards, you want to destroy even more places.
The Structure of Destructive Chains - A Programmer's Perspective
Program Director Tanaka pointed out the need for a connecting device so that destruction wouldn't end as a one-off event but lead to further destruction. Tanaka revealed that they divided all elements of the action game into five categories—① Player Character (Donkey Kong), ② Camera, ③ Placements (Objects, Enemies, NPCs), ④ Items, and ⑤ Transformations—and embedded a structure in each to lead to the next destruction.
Donkey Kong uses his thick arms to destroy terrain and enemies. A downward punch breaks the ground beneath him, allowing him to avoid danger or discover underground caves. Punches are mainly used in combination with wall climbing, allowing him to return to the surface freely at any time. The three-way punch (front, down, up) maps directly to the Y, B, and X buttons on the Joy-Con, making the basic destruction actions intuitive to learn.
However, punches alone only result in single-instance destruction. They needed actions that utilized destruction, and the hint came from the experiment where they threw detached terrain. Throwing voxel fragments detached from the terrain becomes a ranged attack (an action impossible for a standard Donkey Kong), swinging them enhances melee attacks, and they can even be used as platforms for double jumps or to increase movement speed. In short, voxel fragments enhance core action performance: melee/ranged attacks, jump height, and movement speed. This created a small cycle where you are strengthened by fragments and return to normal once the fragments are consumed.
The camera acts as the player's eyes, and rotating it is an important action born of curiosity. The game hides numerous empty spaces (cavities) within the terrain, and finding these new spaces acts as a significant reward. However, a problem arose: when digging into the terrain, the view would fill with dirt, making it impossible to see anything.
The solution was the 'underground camera.' When digging from the surface into the ground, the camera enters the terrain, the screen darkens, and it allows for 360-degree free rotation, making buried spaces and items vaguely visible. This 'vague' method of information delivery is key. By using fog (a hazy sense of distance) to obscure anything beyond a certain range and emphasizing silhouettes, they clearly indicated where the player should head.
Additionally, to prevent the character from being obscured by passages between Donkey Kong and the camera, they implemented a transparency effect on foreground terrain to ensure Donkey Kong is always visible. Thanks to this, they were able to create stages where most of the level is buried underground, allowing for stages that focus entirely on digging downward.
Not just terrain, but placements like objects, enemies, and NPCs also had to be destructible. Placements are the protagonists of destruction gameplay. However, simply destroying them and moving on doesn't create a chain, so the challenge was to create variations in gameplay that lead to destruction. The solution was voxel materials. Like the terrain, placements are composed of voxels, so differences in material change the nature of the destruction.
Materials affect enemy durability. Soft enemies like sand can be easily blown away, but hard enemies like rock cannot be defeated and instead cause damage. To subdue hard enemies, players must use ingenuity, such as using fragments from the enemy's own weapons or softening them first. NPCs made of ice can cool lava, and because their bodies regenerate, they serve as an infinite source of ice.
Conversely, elements with finite supplies add to the fun. A floor made of salt can dissolve pollutants, but it becomes unstable with each use, providing the fun of resource management as players decide whether to preserve or destroy the platform. Voxels are also used in enemy attacks. By having enemies spit acid that melts iron—which Donkey Kong cannot break—players can turn enemy attacks to their advantage to reach new areas.
The game's items include gold, fossils, and bananium. Gold is a currency for purchasing consumable items, while fossils and bananium are important items that strengthen Donkey Kong when collected. Placing items beyond the terrain makes them function as rewards for destruction, but the key was whether the player could realize that a fossil was hidden behind a wall with a poster on it.
To achieve this, they introduced a sonar effect to the 'hand slap' action used to collect gold. As the player collects gold dropped by defeated enemies using the hand slap, the sonar activates to reveal hidden fossils, prompting the player to voluntarily destroy the terrain to obtain them. In essence, the items themselves react to the sonar, guiding the player and promoting destruction.
Gold has another role: it is the energy required for Donkey Kong's 'Bananza' transformation. By collecting gold to fill the gauge and performing a drumming action, he transforms; for example, Kong Bananza gains increased destructive power, allowing him to break objects that cannot be broken with a normal punch. Transformation has a time limit, but collecting gold allows for immediate re-transformation, and the existence of the time limit encourages the player to proceed with destruction at a faster pace.
However, the time limit alone was not enough. A problem arose where players would run out of targets to destroy during transformation and end up destroying things aimlessly. To address this, they designed the sonar to be permanently active during transformation. When hidden underground items become visible, it provides a new motive for destruction and a clear reason to break the terrain. Aimless destruction is transformed into purposeful destruction, which again leads to rewards.
Tanaka summarized that by combining the structures embedded in each of these five elements, they completed the 'chain of destruction' cycle where destruction leads to rewards. Donkey Kong, who can destroy and utilize anything anywhere through fragment enhancement and the underground camera; placements that provide opportunities for destruction through material utilization; items that act as self-guiding rewards; and transformations that connect to exploration rewards through time limits and sonar—all these elements connect to the next destruction, completing the chain structure.
The Foundation of Level Design Composed of Destruction
Tanaka then explained the production process of voxel terrain, the foundation of level design. The biggest feature of the game's level design is the cycle of destruction and reward, where various elements are discovered within the terrain when destroyed. Creating terrain that exists not only on the surface but also inside, and doing so with voxels, had limitations with standard 3D modeling tools.
Consequently, the development team chose to assemble voxel terrain directly within the level editor. They create terrain by synthesizing or carving out voxels of various shapes. Synthesis involves overlapping shapes and overwriting the overlapping parts with a specific material (e.g., sand), while carving uses an eraser mode to delete voxels in the overlapping area to hollow out the desired shape. If this eraser is used like an outer wall, it is possible to create a space inside a sand sphere. Stages of product scale are created in a layer structure with multiple placement files, and by working on the surface and underground in separate files, they were able to design massive underground spaces.
Takahashi introduced specific level design techniques. The sandbox-style stages composed of natural terrain were also created with the aforementioned editor. They establish a rough shape by placing and combining voxel parts, build around a main route connecting the start and goal points, and expand the scale by assigning materials like grass or rock.
Takahashi emphasized that they did not simply follow Mario's development know-how but applied level design optimized for this work. Both Super Mario Odyssey and Bananza have a single main route from start to goal with rewards obtained in the surrounding area, but there is a major difference in whether the rewards are directly visible to the player. While Odyssey places rewards like Power Moons so they are intuitively visible in various locations, in Bananza, large visible rewards are only a fraction of the total, and most rewards are hidden behind terrain, requiring the player to destroy it to obtain them.
The key was to appropriately place the triggers for the destruction chain. For example, if an enemy is used as a trigger, various branches emerge beyond the standard route of launching the enemy to find rewards: ▲ searching with hand slap and sonar when the enemy doesn't hit a wall, ▲ searching with sonar after transformation, ▲ discovering by the explosion of explosives buried near the enemy, ▲ accidentally breaking a wall connected to a reward, etc.
By placing triggers between Donkey Kong and rewards, choices arise regarding how to utilize enemies, and in that process, various chains lead to rewards. Even if there is a flow intended by the level designer, the player does not necessarily have to follow it; the key is to broaden the options for the chain through destruction triggers.
The game supports not only 'Destruction Trigger -> Reward' but also 'Reward -> Reward' chains. Notable examples include challenge battle entrances that can only be entered by breaking seals with partner Pauline's song, shrines that register as checkpoints when knocked and emit a powerful sonar to help find more bananium, and fossils found at villa checkpoints that only appear when terrain is destroyed.
Takahashi also emphasized level design that fills the gaps in the chain. To extend the chain to every corner of the vast terrain's surface and underground, they utilized dynamic placement. Gold and treasure chests appear automatically when terrain is destroyed according to certain rules, and among them, maps reveal the locations of fossils. It is a structure where a desert that had nothing is connected to a zone designed with fossils as a trigger, and enemies near the fossils become another trigger for destruction. By placing destructible decorations everywhere, such as reaching an underground passage by digging where a decoration was blown away, they designed it so that even a single blade of grass contributes to the destruction chain.
Finally, he introduced a configuration that allows players to safely take side paths. As the chain of destruction continues, players naturally wander off the main route into unfamiliar places, and the game is designed so they can continue exploring without having to backtrack. In island-style stages, even if you take a side path, you naturally merge back into the main route, and trolley rails settle the player back onto the main route to the next island. The entire game is built in a vertical structure that goes downward, so after exploring each floor freely, moving through vertical tunnels naturally leads back to the main route. He explained that such an environment, where one can safely explore side paths, psychologically promotes the chain of destruction.
The two summarized that this work is a 3D action game where everything can be destroyed, themed around Donkey Kong and voxel technology, and that they built a chain of destruction cycle by delving deep into the concept of destruction. All elements of the action game are organically combined so that they lead to the next destruction, completing the chain structure, and they implemented level design where diverse play occurs within it.
Takahashi said that not only were there chains within the game, but a chain of ideas occurred between various fields within the development team, and that just as the planner and programmer stood together in this spot, an organic approach to both game design and technology was very important in the development of this work. He concluded by stating that the fun of destroying leads to another destruction, and this is the game cycle of the destruction chain presented by Donkey Kong Bananza.
