I'm convinced Nintendo might be gearing up for a Mario Kart World DLC announcement as it prepares to spotlight a Donkey Kong Bananza character it's been refusing to publicly acknowledge since launch

The Nintendo Today app was updated with a new Donkey Kong theme earlier this week. And as well as remedying the lack of one of Nintendo's biggest icons as an option, this resulted in dataminers finding some interesting animations set to play later this month, which, when paired with The Game Awards, have some interesting timing.

Spoilers for Donkey Kong Bananza's final few levels below, so read at your own risk.

As those of you who have beaten Donkey Kong Bananza know, the game's finale featured the return of the franchise's iconic villain King K. Rool as the actual final boss after you dispatch the main villains. This in turn also brings back some other Donkey Kong Country-era enemies in the game's final layers. However, Nintendo has still been coy about saying K. Rool is in Bananza so far.

But dataminers (via Mario Wiki) have found that the Nintendo Today app will play an animation featuring the villain on December 15 (and the 15th of each month onwards). Of course, this could be nothing, but Nintendo acknowledging King K. Rool's Bananza appearance for the first time a few days after The Game Awards is certainly interesting timing, especially when King K. Rool's voice actor Tsuguo Mogami was spotted in the credits of Mario Kart World alongside Void Kong actor Yū Hayashi.

Players had already theorized the game would get a DK-themed expansion due to his lack of outfits and music in the Switch 2 racer, and the credits only added fuel to the fire.

Nintendo has a habit of announcing DLC at The Game Awards, with 2017's show featuring The Champions Ballad for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, while 2018 and 2020's shows featured the announcements of Joker and Sephiroth, respectively, for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. So perhaps Mario Kart World DLC could continue the trend.

Granted, animations on the 6th and 9th features Kritters, one of the Kremling enemies, which could be a point against the theory. But then again, other days feature Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze's Snowmads and Returns' Tiki Tong, so maybe Nintendo doesn't see them as a spoiler – even if them showing up in Bananza is tied to K. Rool.

Donkey Kong may be the best Nintendo Today theme to date; as the rest of the animations feature some really great plays on Donkey Kong Bananza. For example, the K. Rool fakeout ending from Bananza (which in itself was a reference to Donkey Kong Country) appears on the 30th saying, "The month is over?" before he wakes up, revealing the 30. Meanwhile, the end of each month features the dance DK and Pauline do at the end of each layer of the game, with the text reading "On to the next month!" as opposed to "next layer," which is truly adorable.

Nintendo wants Mario Kart World to be a Switch 2 game fans will "continue to choose for years to come" like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and I hope that means DLC could be on the cards.