The Switch 2 doesn’t have many exclusives yet, but two of the biggest ones,Mario Kart WorldandDonkey Kong Bananza, were originally being developed for the original Switch.
Speaking toIGN, Donkey Kong Bananzaproducer Kenta Motokura and director Kazuya Takahashidiscussed the development process of Donkey Kong Bananza, including such topics as Donkey Kong andthe young Pauline’scoincidental resemblance tothe main characters of Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph.
Naturally, when discussing the development of a Switch 2 exclusive so early in the new console’s life cycle, the question of whether it started development on it or its predecessor came up as well, and,much like Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza was originally envisioned as a game for the original Switch.
Enabling ‘Continuity Of Destruction’
According to theIGN interview, an important philosophy behind Donkey Kong Bananza is what Takahashi and Motokura call “continuity of destruction,” the gameplay concept of being able to destroy part of the environment to find a reward, which in turn reveals a new area that can be destroyed for another reward, and so on.
Takahashi said that they realized this concept would be better implemented on the more powerful Switch 2, which would be better able to handle the voxel technology behind the destruction mechanic than its predecessor.
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This should please those who plan to play the game on the go.
“And when I was previously talking about the importance of the continuity of destruction, that was something that we could expand on and have a longer continuous play experience with that kind of concept on Nintendo Switch 2,” he said. “So this allowed us to engage in creating really extremely rich variety of materials and very large scale changes in the environment on that new hardware.”
And when destruction is your core gameplay, one really important moment that we wanted to preserve was when a player looks at a part of the terrain and thinks, can I break this? – Kazuya Takahashi
The team’s conclusion was that effect was best created on Switch 2, hence prompting the shift to the new console.
The more powerful hardware wasn’t the only reason for the change, though, since they were also interested in using the Switch 2’s mouse controls in co-op mode for a second player to control Pauline, as well as for the DK Artist terrain-sculpting mode.
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Do you see what they’ve done?
