Donkey Kong Bananza, the next big Switch 2 exclusive, actually started development on the original Switch console.
Speaking to IGN about the banana-fuelled platformer, Super Mario Odyssey director and Bananza producer Kenta Motokura revealed that "this game originally began its development cycle on Nintendo Switch 1 and at the time, we were still using voxel technology and thinking of lots of different ideas for applications."
Those voxels probably worked just fine on the older hardware, but pulling off a wildly destructible world, like the ones seen in Bananza, required a beefier console.
"When we learned about the Switch 2 development, we realized that the best implementation of these ideas and technology would be on Nintendo Switch 2," Motokura explained.
Director Kazuya Takahashi elaborated that the transition to Switch 2 development "allowed us to engage in creating really extremely rich variety of materials and very large scale changes in the environment on that new hardware."
He even emphasised that, "when destruction is your core gameplay," players need to be able to look at almost any part of the terrain and think "can I break this?" And then, of course, be able to break it.
"That creates a very important surprise that has a lot of impact for them and that was something that was best done on Switch 2."
It wasn't just the Switch 2's horsepower that informed the change, though. Takahashi also said the console's mouse controls were really attractive since the devs could then add new features like co-op play, which sees a second player control Young Pauline to shoot out vocal blasts, and DK Artist, a 3D sculpting tool that I'm sure will be used very responsibly.
Nintendo relents, confirms Donkey Kong Bananza is being made by the Super Mario Odyssey team after weeks of fans guessing just that
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