With Donkey Kong Bananza just two days away from launching on the Switch 2, Nintendo has released a three-part interview series with the game's leads. That's how we learned you can skip locations and part of the story in Donkey Kong Bananza, thanks to the game's destruction gameplay. It's also how we learned the game's destruction gameplay can be traced back to a Goomba with arms in Super Mario Odyssey. 

When asked by the interviewer about the origins of Bananza's destruction mechanics, one of the game's directors, Wataru Tanaka, explained the team (which also developed Super Mario Odyssey) had already been researching smashing mechanics before development on Bananza began. "Shortly after Super Mario Odyssey was released, we started running technical experiments with the idea of, 'What kind of game do you get if everything in the environment is destructible?'" 

That's when producer Kenta Motokura chimed in to add, "We even tried sticking arms on a Goomba." 

"That's right, we did," Tanaka said. "In Super Mario Odyssey, there's a boss called Knucklotec who attacks Mario with giant hands. The programmer who created him tried attaching those arms to a Goomba as an experiment. The Goomba could smash terrain, tear off pieces to use as weapons, and throw them. Those actions felt surprisingly satisfying, and we got a sense that this destruction-based gameplay could be a compelling core mechanic." 

The interview features a short behind-the-scenes clip showcasing this Goomba with arms smashing a prototype rocky environment – check out the screenshot below: 

Motokura concludes the question by explaining, "The results of our tests showed that destruction-based gameplay could work, and it was a good match for Donkey Kong's enormous strength. We felt that concept and the core gameplay clicked into place." 

Fast forward a few years, and Donkey Kong Bananza is just two days away from launching exclusively on Switch 2. 

In the meantime, read Game Informer's hands-on preview impressions after two hours with the game, and then check out this Donkey Kong Bananza New Gameplay Today. After that, check out the Donkey Kong Bananza amiibo and then catch up on everything we learned about the game during the Donkey Kong Bananza Direct last month.

Are you picking up Donkey Kong Bananza this week? Let us know in the comments below!

With Donkey Kong Bananza just two days away from launching on the Switch 2, Nintendo has released a three-part interview series with the game's leads. That's how we learned you can skip locations and part of the story in Donkey Kong Bananza, thanks to the game's destruction gameplay. It's also how we learned the game's destruction gameplay can be traced back to a Goomba with arms in Super Mario Odyssey. 

When asked by the interviewer about the origins of Bananza's destruction mechanics, one of the game's directors, Wataru Tanaka, explained the team (which also developed Super Mario Odyssey) had already been researching smashing mechanics before development on Bananza began. "Shortly after Super Mario Odyssey was released, we started running technical experiments with the idea of, 'What kind of game do you get if everything in the environment is destructible?'" 

That's when producer Kenta Motokura chimed in to add, "We even tried sticking arms on a Goomba." 

"That's right, we did," Tanaka said. "In Super Mario Odyssey, there's a boss called Knucklotec who attacks Mario with giant hands. The programmer who created him tried attaching those arms to a Goomba as an experiment. The Goomba could smash terrain, tear off pieces to use as weapons, and throw them. Those actions felt surprisingly satisfying, and we got a sense that this destruction-based gameplay could be a compelling core mechanic." 

The interview features a short behind-the-scenes clip showcasing this Goomba with arms smashing a prototype rocky environment – check out the screenshot below: 

Motokura concludes the question by explaining, "The results of our tests showed that destruction-based gameplay could work, and it was a good match for Donkey Kong's enormous strength. We felt that concept and the core gameplay clicked into place." 

Fast forward a few years, and Donkey Kong Bananza is just two days away from launching exclusively on Switch 2. 

In the meantime, read Game Informer's hands-on preview impressions after two hours with the game, and then check out this Donkey Kong Bananza New Gameplay Today. After that, check out the Donkey Kong Bananza amiibo and then catch up on everything we learned about the game during the Donkey Kong Bananza Direct last month.

Are you picking up Donkey Kong Bananza this week? Let us know in the comments below!

The Outlast Trials Season 4, Project Diarchy, begins today, introducing a new trial environment and a fresh killer to stalk players. The season adds a twisted new Prime Asset in the form of conjoined twins Otto and Arora Kress. 

These wealthy lovers work as one, quite literally, to hunt players down using a combination of a chainsaw and a 360-degree vision scope to spot players wherever they hide. You can catch a glimpse of them in action in the launch trailer below. 

The Kress Twins occupy the new shopping mall trial environment, which houses a new Story Trial called Kill the Politician (guess the objective). Season 4 also adds two new MK-Challenges – Get Out the Vote and Sentence the Persecuted – along with a revamped Rebirth system offering two paths: original Rebirth (solo play) and Communal (team play), and a new Deluxe Catalog of cosmetic items. 

The Outlast Trials is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

The Outlast Trials Season 4, Project Diarchy, begins today, introducing a new trial environment and a fresh killer to stalk players. The season adds a twisted new Prime Asset in the form of conjoined twins Otto and Arora Kress. 

These wealthy lovers work as one, quite literally, to hunt players down using a combination of a chainsaw and a 360-degree vision scope to spot players wherever they hide. You can catch a glimpse of them in action in the launch trailer below. 

The Kress Twins occupy the new shopping mall trial environment, which houses a new Story Trial called Kill the Politician (guess the objective). Season 4 also adds two new MK-Challenges – Get Out the Vote and Sentence the Persecuted – along with a revamped Rebirth system offering two paths: original Rebirth (solo play) and Communal (team play), and a new Deluxe Catalog of cosmetic items. 

The Outlast Trials is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

With Nintendo's next Switch 2 exclusive game, Donkey Kong Bananza, just two days away from launch, the company has released a three-part interview series about the game's development. In the final section of the series, one of Bananza's directors, Kazuya Takahashi, said players can skip locations and parts of the story in the game, thanks to its unique destruction gameplay. 

"There's a lot of leeway in terms of progression in this game," Takahashi said when asked about any final words he might have to close out the interview. "For example, locations or parts of the story you can skip without suffering any consequences. When the game progresses in a way we hadn't intended, we call it a 'sequence break' in development terminology. Typically, in game development, restrictions are put in place to prevent this from happening, but since this game is all about destruction, we wanted people to play freely." 

As you can see, it sounds like there's a lot of leeway given to players when it comes to destruction and what they're able to accomplish by destroying the environment around them. It can even lead to skipping story sections or locations; however, given Nintendo's typically high standard of quality, it's unlikely that players will be able to skip critical parts of the game. Regardless, Takahashi said this newfound freedom from restrictions makes things easier for the development team. 

"But please do experiment," he said. 

Fortunately, there are just two days left until everyone can begin experimenting with Donkey Kong's destructive abilities because Donkey Kong Bananza launches exclusively on Switch 2 this Thursday, July 17. 

In the meantime, read Game Informer's hands-on preview impressions after two hours with the game, and then check out this Donkey Kong Bananza New Gameplay Today. After that, check out the Donkey Kong Bananza amiibo and then catch up on everything we learned about the game during the Donkey Kong Bananza Direct last month. 

Are you picking up Donkey Kong Bananza this week? Let us know in the comments below!