Donkey Kong Bananzalooks great. From the moment it was revealed atNintendo’s Switch 2showcase earlier this year, it was the game I was most excited to get my monkey paws on. A new open-worldMario Kartgame is great and all, but give me an ambitious new 3D platformer over a kart racer any day.
My excitement was heightened when I read TheGamer Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley’spreview where she hypothesized that it was likely being developed by the internal Nintendo team behind Super Mario Odyssey. Other previewers shared that supposition, andNintendo has finally confirmed that yes, the Odyssey team is, indeed, making the next Donkey Kong game.
Donkey Kong Is The New Mario
This is great news for Donkey Kong fans, but weird news for Mario fans. It’s been eight years since the last 3D Mario game, and this makes it feel like we’re not any closer to a new one.
Eight years since the lastfull-length3D Mario game, at least. The Switch remaster of Super Mario 3D World included the bite-sized open-world gameBowser’s Fury.
The Switch launched with two heavy-hitters within its first year, as Nintendo marshalled the strength of Zelda and Mario to move huge numbers of units.Breath of the WildandMario Odysseywere so rapturously received that anyone who wasn’t playing them felt major FOMO. The Switch 2’s launch has been a strange counterpoint. Mario Kart World looks fantastic (I still don’t have a Switch 2, so I can’t be more declarative) and will no doubt be one of the console’s highest-selling games when everything is said and done. But it doesn’t inspire the same kind of FOMO. You tell me the pitch is open-world Mario, and I get it, it sounds fun, but I don’tneedit.
A new Mario game, a new Zelda game, you need to play to believe. When Nintendo shows off mechanics like Odyssey’s possession orTears of the Kingdom’s Ultrahand, you need to try it out for yourself. Nintendo has something extremely cool on its hands with Donkey Kong Bananza’s massively destructible world, but it isn’t quite on the same level as those recent classics. It seems awesome, but not entirely unique. New 3D Mario games always have the ‘I HAVE to play that’ factor that the Switch 2’s launch lineup currently lacks.
But Mario Is Still Mario, Right?
On a more basic, commercial level, though. Mario is a much more popular character than Donkey Kong. That’s why it was called The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and co-starred DK, not vice versa. Donkey Kong gave us Mario, it’s true, but the student surpassed the master 40 years ago. It’s bizarre to see Nintendo prioritizing a new DK game when nearly a decade has passed since the last 3D Mario. You’d think that, given the billion dollar success of the Mario movie, Nintendo would want to strike while the iron was hot. It did give us Super Mario Bros. Wonder the same year as the Mario movie, so it’s possible we’ll get a 3D Mario in time for the sequel.
But that raises a crucial question: who’s going to make it? The Odyssey team taking on Bananza may be the result of a domino effect as developers have moved around. Bandai Namco Studios was originally developingMetroid Prime 4: Beyondin place of Retro Studios, which made the first three games. When development restarted under Retro, is it possible that a DK game got scrapped?
Maybe, but that would mean Retro had two games in development at that time, as we already know thatan original RPG called Harmonywas in the works and cancelled in favor of Metroid. It’s possible the Odyssey team stepped up to make a DK game since the DK team was now busy, but that seems like the exact opposite of how I would expect Nintendo’s priorities to go. Mario is the brand mascot, everything else is secondary.
So where is the next 3D Mario? I don’t know. And at this point, I’m kinda worried.
