Is Donkey Kong Bananza on Nintendo Switch?

Donkey Kong Bananza is available on the Nintendo Switch 2, but what about the predecessor console? The original hybrid console from Nintendo is one of the highest-selling platforms of all time, and as such, enjoys a massive audience. Despite that, however, fans anticipating the latest 3D platformer adventure to arrive on this last-gen machine will be disappointed, as Bananza is a Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive game.

That said, here's everything to know about Donkey Kong Bananza and the platforms it's available on, including its origins as a Nintendo Switch 1 title.

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Donkey Kong Bananza is only on the current-gen Nintendo Switch 2

First revealed back in the April 2025 Nintendo Direct, Bananza was officially stated to be exclusive to the new Switch 2 platform. As such, fans of the original Switch who were anticipating this game will be in for a disappointment. This is because DK Bananza is the most ambitious 3D platformer Nintendo has made to date.

Built atop the technology powering Super Mario Odyssey, the game goes above and beyond with features that would have been difficult to realize on the last-gen Nintendo handheld, given its limitations. Donkey Kong Bananza uses a voxel-based physics system for destruction, allowing players to bash and smash through the terrain as the titular gorilla.

Nintendo recently revealed that the project originally began life on the previous console. Speaking in the official Ask the Developer (Vol.19) Part 2 blog from the company, Producer Kento Motokura 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."

Donkey Kong's various movesets do a great job of showcasing the terrain deformation system (Image via Nintendo)

The developers also revealed that this shift to developing the title only for the Nintendo Switch 2 let them incorporate many gameplay and design ideas they had previously abandoned. Furthermore, it also allowed them to drastically increase asset detail, density, and more. All of this is on top of the tons of particle effects flying around, as well as a relatively high rendering resolution, reasonably attractive presentation, and a 60 FPS performance target.

The Nintendo Switch 2's superior specs help realize all of these elements to a good degree. In other words, the predecessor console, featuring the Nvidia Tegra X1 chipset, was not powerful enough to let the developers realize their vision, which makes sense as the SoC (System on a Chip) is about 10 years old at this point.

Henceforth, Nintendo is undoubtedly going to develop more ambitious titles that make full use of the Nintendo Switch 2's hardware. As such, first-party software support for the original Switch will slowly but surely die down as we head deeper into the Nintendo Switch 2's life cycle.