Donkey Kong Bananza has had a lengthy development time, with the director claiming work started on the game right after Super Mario Odyssey.

Nintendo has given fans a rare peek behind its development curtain, and a look at how upcoming Switch 2 platformer Donkey Kong Bananza would have looked on Switch 1.

Donkey Kong Bananza will be releasing at midnight of your region’s easternmost time zone on Thursday, July 17. This can be a bit confusing for those who live in larger countries, but as soon as it hits midnight anywhere in your region, the game will become available to play — barring any hiccups.

Available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2, 'Donkey Kong Bananza' offers stunning graphics and hours of punch-throwing fun.

Expanding on comments previously made to IGN about Bananza's origins, producer Kenta Motokura has said that the game's development began when Nintendo legend Yoshiaki Koizumi asked his 3D Mario team to work its magic making a 3D DK game instead.

The limitations of the original Switch hindered DK Bananza enough that the developers decided to wait for Switch 2.

A Donkey Kong Bananza Switch 1 port could have emerged, but the Nintendo Switch 2 became the only way forward for the platform game.

The first thing players will notice upon booting up Donkey Kong Bananza is that its titular ape looks pretty different. Although DK has sported multiple styles before (and the name’s been used for different characters entirely), his core aesthetic has remained mostly the same since the series’ first reboot in 1994’s Donkey Kong Country .

Nintendo eventually decided that smashing environments was a perfect fit for Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong Bananza is the gorilla's first 3D platformer since 1999's Donkey Kong 64 and the first to be internally developed by Nintendo since 2005's Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. In our preview, it was confirmed that it is being developed by the same team behind Super Mario Odyssey.