Nintendo explains why Donkey Kong Bananza can't launch on the original Switch

Nintendo has explained in an "Ask the Developers" interview with the team behind the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza how the idea for destructible environments came about, and why the game is releasing exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2 and not the original Switch.

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The team behind Bananza is the same team that created Super Mario Odyssey, which introduced destructible environments shortly after its release. The idea was combined with the team being tasked with creating a 3D Donkey Kong game that captured the essence of the character, but also ushered in a new level of innovation for players. The new innovation decided upon by the developers was environmental destruction, which is the core theme of Bananza.

In the interview, the title's game directors explain they decided to combine the work they have done with 3D Mario games with voxel-based destruction, which, for those who don't know, a voxel is a 3D pixel. Here's the difference. Pixel art consists of lots of tiny squares, and when arranged on a flat surface with variations in color, they create a two-dimensional image, or a pixel. Take that same idea and extend it to three dimensions, and you get what is called a voxel, or a 3D pixel.

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The team created the entirety of Bananza out of voxels, including characters, and most importantly, terrain. Voxel technology enabled the developers to customize the appearance and material of each voxel, allowing the team to maintain high levels of detail and differentiate between different terrains, environments, and materials. For example, sand interacts differently from water or snow.

The interview revealed that voxel technology was actually used in the development of Super Mario Odyssey, such as the cheese rocks in the Luncheon Kingdom, or Mario plowing through the snow in the Snow Kingdom. Take the design of both of those environments and expand it out to an entire game, and you get Donkey Kong Bananza.

"We first looked into how we could upgrade what we'd originally built for Switch to take advantage of Switch 2. One of the most obvious improvements was that we could place far more objects in the environment than before. Being able to place more objects in the terrain didn't just enhance the game's visual richness. More importantly, it increased the amount of things players could destroy, which amplified the exhilaration of being able to demolish anything and everything. That went hand in hand with the game's core concept of destruction. It convinced us that this game would be even more fun if we developed it for Switch 2," said Watanabe, the art director for Bananza

The team was asked if Donkey Kong Bananza was always planned as a Nintendo Switch 2 game, and the developers said, "We originally began developing Donkey Kong Bananza on Nintendo Switch, but we ran into some challenges. I think it was around 2021 when we started to think about moving development to Switch 2."

One of those challenges was voxel technology being quite demanding for system memory, and the original Switch didn't have enough to support everything the developers wanted to do. The developers said voxel technology uses eight times the data as traditional pixels. The team said the original Switch would struggle to handle the load, and also pointed out other limitations, such as the physics of the world not being at satisfying levels on the original Switch.

For example, at 30FPS, the developers weren't able to capture the destructible capabilities of Donkey Kong, specifically when he would break the environment. The low framerate meant not all of the destruction could be seen. This problem was fixed when upgrading to 60FPS, with the developers saying, "Not only did Switch 2 enable the game to run well, it unlocked the game's full potential - no, it made the game possible."

"The physics of smashing involve lots of things all happening at once. Donkey Kong throws a punch, the terrain and objects break apart, and visual effects show debris flying outward. All of that is packed into a single moment. At 30 FPS, we couldn't fully capture everything that happens in that instant. But at 60 FPS, we saw that sense of destruction coming through much more clearly. We thought to ourselves, "Now we've got something seriously satisfying!" Not only did Switch 2 enable the game to run well, it unlocked the game's full potential - no, it made the game possible," said Watanabe