During an IGN interview for Donkey Kong Bananza, the development team was asked about Donkey Kong’s visual redesign in Donkey Kong Bananza.

While the team didn’t say that the character’s visual redesign came from the game itself, they did state that the character’s design in Donkey Kong Bananza was inspired by Shigeru Miyamoto’s original designs, as well as the “expressive features” from games in the Donkey Kong Country series.

The developers took all of these elements and brought them together to create a new character design that is “very expressive” and “very emotive” in Donkey Kong Bananza.

When you were creating Donkey Kong Bananza, at what point in development did you learn that Donkey Kong was going to be receiving a visual redesign?

Motokura: So we’re always thinking about what sort of in-game expression of the character would be appropriate. You want to make sure that you have a character that can be very expressive, very emotive. And so from the very beginning of the project we were considering over the long history of Donkey Kong, what elements could we pull into in terms of creating this appearance that would be fun for fans. And as a result, we spent a lot of time thinking about distinctive visual features of Donkey Kong as a character among the developers. Even going all the way back to Mr. Miyamoto’s original designs. We found a lot of expressive features in that character design as well. But also, in games like the Country series, you see him adventuring in a jungle where he has more of a cool and wild side. And so we wanted to pull together a lot of these different elements of the character over its long history, to come together for the design of Donkey Kong Bananza.

I think there’s a perception that the new design of Donkey Kong exists because of the movie. Did it originally come from you all and then was reflected in the movie and Mario Kart World and everywhere else? Is that right?

Motokura: It’s true that sometimes there is a base for the model that will be used as the fundamental structure for different types of content, yes.

[Author’s note: Following the interview and prior to publication, Nintendo PR reached out to offer the following additional context to Motokura’s response: “Mr. Miyamoto’s original design for Donkey Kong serves as the fundamental baseline that can be used for different types of content, including in Donkey Kong Bananza but also the movie and Mario Kart World. The recent Donkey Kong as seen in Donkey Kong Bananza has roots in the original design created by Mr. Miyamoto with the element of Donkey Kong Bananza.“]

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