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Eagle-eyed sleuths online have noticed that Nintendo has listed Donkey Kong Bananza among its "local multiplayer games" section on the My Nintendo Store, leading to speculation of a co-op mode in the upcoming platformer.
The upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive was spotted by a Famiboards user (via Nintendo Life) sitting in the "local multiplayer games" section, next to the very-obviously-multiplayer Mario Kart World and the mouthful that is "Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV." Meanwhile, the actual Nintendo eShop page for Bananza lists the players as "TBD."
While it gives no indication of what this multiplayer mode could be, it does help strengthen one of the biggest mysteries about the game. Nintendo has remained quiet about who is developing Donkey Kong Bananza, but the main guess is Nintendo EPD Tokyo, which has developed every 3D Mario game since Galaxy with producer Yoshiaki Koizumi.
One detail about the console 3D Mario games created within that time is that they all feature some form of multiplayer mode. The Galaxy games allowed the second player to use a pointer to collect and fire star bits, Odyssey let another player control Cappy independently of Mario, and Bowser's Fury let a second player take the role of Bowser Jr. Considering we've seen Donkey Kong with a purple rock companion (who already had an interesting detail leak about them), there's a chance it could take on the role of the multiplayer helper seen in previous games.
Of course, there's also the possibility that Nintendo has somehow hidden a super-elaborate, fully-blown co-op mode where two Donkey Kongs (or Diddy, who has yet to be seen in the new game) can travel the world together. But I think it's best to be realistic about these sorts of things.
