‘Donkey Kong Bananza’ Lands New DLC In ‘DK Island & Emerald Rush’

Even though I’ve just made my way through Donkey Kong Bananza’s main adventure, Nintendo has just announced some brand new DLC for its truly excellent 3D platformer. It’s called DK Island & Emerald Rush, and it’s available today for $19.99 on the Nintendo eShop.

The DLC trailer showcases what this additional content is all about, starting with DK Island itself, which seems a nice ode to Donkey Kong Country, complete with familiar characters like Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, other nostalgic primates. We’re going back to DK’s home, and the scenery is downright gorgeous.

Plus, there’s the infamous minecart to ride around inside, which as far as I’m concerned, is also a canon Donkey Kong character. While you can explore the island right off the bat, you’ll have to complete the main Donkey Kong Bananza campaign if you want to explore the fresh Emerald Rush content.

To start, you basically get recruited by Void Kong into the evil Void Company to harvest bright green emerald ore, which is a sort of reimagination of the game’s ubiquitous and collectible gold. During individual gameplay runs, collect green bits and fossils to earn perks, and these perks give you new stat buffs to enhance your performance.

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Apparently, you can stack these perks to amass maximum amounts of green ore, and I really dig how arcadey this mode looks. Side note: Why does Void Kong strongly resemble Stripe from Gremlins? Deep questions without deep answers.

Banadium gems are also repurposed in this DLC, wherein you smash them to gain random powerups during aforementioned frenetic emerald runs. In a way, Emerald Rush already feels very rougelite, in that the perks and gems reset after each round, and there are meta-rewards that carry beyond the arcade-ish laps, if you want to call them that. I’m admittedly quite hot-or-cold on rougelites, but given how much I love Donkey Kong Bananza, I’m excited to try out this new DLC.

Granted, it’s a bit strange to have new content so soon after Bananza’s recent July 17 release date, but $20 seems pretty fair for what you’re getting here, and it should meaningfully extend the life of an already fantastic experience. If only we could get some Mario Kart World DLC…