Is Mario Kart World Getting Donkey Kong Bananza DLC? Datamines Have Fans Speculating

I feel like this is a big reach. Don't assume it will happen because it seems unlikely and you're really setting yourself up for disappointment expecting it. And this is coming from the "MKW will receive DLC at some point" guy.

I feel like the character select screen is already bloated enough. You think I want to add MORE?! Clean up the UI, then we'll talk.

I would say people are just getting their hopes up over nothing.. but I can't argue with the voice actors in the credits. K Rool in Mario Kart would have a lot of draw.

Which fans are speculating? These things won't be linked at all...

Not only is it very unlikely you would even be using the Donkey Kong theme come December 15th. But why would the team designing what to display for each day of the month on a mobile app... have anything to do with the team working on Mario Kart World DLC?

Edit: It's not even just for December 15th... it's the 15th of every month of the year! How many times do we think he's going to get released?

Perhaps we'll hear more in an early 2026 direct. I would be very surprised that Nintendo has any reveals at the Game Awards, so I would count that theory out right away.

@KayFiOS the character select screen in World is the single biggest problem in the game. Like it's incomprehensibly bad. There is absolutely zero logic applied to it at all and I cannot believe Nintendo thought it was okay to send the game out like that. Like even if we accept that costumes get their own character slot, that still leaves them in a completely random order with actual characters randomly mixed in with them.

it already got DLC.

I strongly believe that we'll be getting Bananza DLC featuring K. Rool, but this seems like a huge reach. It's still important information though, because it tells us that Nintendo's lifting the lid on Bananza spoilers, so that brings us a step closer to this DLC getting announced.

(My personal belief is that one wave of DLC will be a Bananza tie-in and will have K. Rool and the missing Kongs plus costumes for DK and Pauline, while another wave will be Wonder-themed and will include the Koopalings, maybe with some costumes for Bowser and Jr.)

@FlyingDunsparce
Hard agree on this, the CSS is beyond awful and easily the worst I've ever seen. Possibly the biggest UI blunder I've ever seen Nintendo make. I can post a huge rant on it but I'll spare y'all that lol

Oh no, don’t get this K. Rool fan’s hopes up. He’s just part of the daily animation for that theme, which should pay tribute to the whole DK series anyway. K. Rool’s and Void’s actors could just as easily have voiced background characters. But now I can’t help fantasizing about King K. Rool eating a kabob and turning into Kaptain K. Rool at Wario Shipyard or eating popcorn and turning into Baron K. Roolenstein at Boo Cinema. Thanks a lot…

DK and Pauline having only ONE costume is truly suspicious though. I just don’t expect Mario Kart World to have a paid DLC expansion until later next year.

It absolutely is baseless speculation, characters sharing voice actors doesn't mean anything. The K Rool animation is for the 15th of every month, that's how the Nintendo Today animations work. Incredibly embarrassing article to read

Anything that comes to MKW I sure hope will be free content for a good while at least given the price of the base game for what it is. To be clear, it IS good but it struggles to justify its price. The coming free content could be what makes it worth it.

This is neat and I welcome it.

But just for fun, I’d rather see Mario Kart World content added to Donkey Kong Bananza.

@JohnnyMind I agree with you on all counts, really.

I strongly doubt that this Nintendo Today leak means anything for Mario Kart World DLC. However, announcing free DLC for Mario Kart World at The Game Awards would be a good PR move to the gaming community as a whole.

Nintendo has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever and just announce Cranky Kong for Mario Kart World at the show.

This Nintendo Today! leak means literally nothing. Each theme has a little animation for every day of the month with various franchise characters. I'm more interested in those MKW voice credits.

I'll say this: Nintendo better not try to charge us for Mario Kart World DLC after the game was so lackluster at $80. At worst, it should be paid, but included with Nintendo Switch Online.

I do think Donkey Kong-related DLC is on the way, but more based on the lack of DK and Pauline costumes compared to everyone else!

I think we’re grasping at straws here lmao

@FlyingDunsparce

Like even if we accept that costumes get their own character slot, that still leaves them in a completely random order with actual characters randomly mixed in with them.

You can press a button - either X or Y, I forget which - and it'll group each character and all their costumes in order.

I agree that it's still a mess though. Selecting a character should just bring up a sub-screen with all their costumes.

Maybe K Rool’s VA is in the MKW credits because he voices other stuff in the game? Why would he already be in the credits for a DLC that hasn’t been revealed? It makes no sense.

Some kind of Donkey Kong-themed DLC for Mario Kart World sounds too good to be true.

This isn't all that convincing to me, but I didn't need to be convinced. I've been saying this will probably happen since the game first launched! This particular datamined doesn't really prove anything, though.

@Markatron84 yeah I know about that, but like you said that's still a mess having to scroll through that. There's two easy ways they can fix this.

1: have a costume sub-screen under each character. This makes way too much sense so I'll accept option 2: first have all the characters in order, then after that all the costumes in order with the x-button swapping to the current layout of having all the costumes appear in order alongside their character for easy access.

I WOULD LOVE THIS!

King K. Rool is one of my all-time favorite characters. I would gladly main him in Mario Kart World, fingers crossed.

I'm... not convinced. I do think MKW will get some DLC at some point, just not any time soon.

Reminder that Mario Kart Deluxe didn't get its first DLC until 4 years and 11 months after it came out.

I think the focus turning back to DK Bananza is about the GotY nomination rather than an announcement tease.

I swear that I've heard months ago already that Void and K.Rool's VA are in the MK World credits. On top of DK and Pauline obviously missing costumes compared to everyone else, it seems evident that they were gonna have some DLC regarding Bananza at some point. It's just coming a little later than expected, probably because of spoilers reasons

@Nep-Nep-Freak that's not really a good comparison because if Mario Kart World was never moved to Switch 2 then we would never get DLC for 8 Deluxe, better comparison would be the Wii U version of 8, which got DLC about 6 months after it released
Not saying that DLC for World is happening soon but it's not as unlikely as you say it is

All I am going to say is that at $80 price tag, any DLC Nintendo releases for MK World over the next year or two better be free - it’s the only way I can see Nintendo justifying what it charged for it (unless you scored a Switch 2 Bundle, of course).

I'm surprised kid Pauline hasn't been added to Mario Kart World already.

The straws, so far from my grasp...!

I hope ! I don't think some new costumes before Christmas would be that crazy honestly

MKW will get dlc.

DKB will likely be part of that dlc.

This may not happen for 2-3 years. Or months. Or weeks. But it probably will happen.

I fell for click-bait and all I got was carpel-tunnel

It's weird that Diddy Kong and Funky Kong aren't in the game. Hopefully it will be a "Donkey Kong series" DLC that adds them in as well. Maybe Baby DK as well to add to the baby roster.

This has nothing to do with Mario Kart World.

If they announce DLC, this will be in a Direct, not just shadowdropped like that.

More DK content coming to MK World is an inevitability. I'm curious how big the DK dlc will be for MK World. And will it be free or paid?

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah, seriously. Like...can you imagine them charging $20 for it? If you were to buy the game separately, that would make it $100, which would be insane.

I believe DLC will happen at some point for this game. I’ll just wait for Nintendo to confirm it.

@Dark-Luigi
The Switch 2 version of Pokémon Legends Z-A + the DLC for it is $95, so unfortunately it is believable that they would charge for MKW DLC, even if it would certainly be unreasonable.