PSA: Donkey Kong Bananza Spoilers Have Hit the Internet, After Early Copies Land in Fans’ Hands

Donkey Kong Bananza spoilers are being spread online, after early copies of the game have turned up in the hands of several fans.

Story details that players will want to keep as a surprise for themselves are now circulating on the internet, as seen by IGN — though we will not be sharing them here.

Instead, we’d strongly advise Nintendo fans be careful where they click over the coming days, in the run-up to Donkey Kong Bananza’s official launch date this Thursday, July 17.

While it may seem odd to raise a note of caution over story spoilers for a Donkey Kong platformer, this new blockbuster title from key members of Nintendo’s Super Mario Odyssey development team is shaping up to be something special.

There has already been intense speculation over whether Bananza is some kind of Odyssey prequel, based on the inclusion of key character Pauline, and Nintendo’s unusual decision to detail her age in the new game.

Indeed, when IGN asked Bananza’s producer Kenta Motokura and director Kazuya Takahashi specifically about these points, the pair said that these were questions players should be considering as they played the game.

“Certainly because a lot of team members also worked on Super Mario Odyssey, there are some similarities in terms of how they think about the setting of the characters for both games,” Takahashi told IGN.

“But it’s something we really can’t explain all of for now because we need to leave something for people to consider as they’re playing the game,” he continued. It’s probably better you find out by playing it, then, rather than on a random internet forum!

We spoke to Motokura and Takahashi about a number of topics related to Bananza, including how the game was first conceived and the necessity of releasing on the Nintendo Switch 2. You can read our entire interview in full right here, and check out our hands-on preview of the game here.

And in other Donkey Kong news, a Nintendo copyright notice has been spotted for an unannounced Donkey Kong film — something which fans suspect may arrive as a spin-off from the blockbuster Super Mario Bros. Movie and its upcoming sequel.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social