Did Nintendo Just Accidentally Reveal An Unannounced Character In Donkey Kong Bananza?

It looks like Nintendo Korea's website briefly gave away what sidekick may be joining Kong in the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza.

Though the image was quickly switched out with a less revealing one, it wasn't quite quick enough for ResetEra, which managed to grab a screenshot before the website was changed.

Warning! Potential Donkey Kong: Bananza spoilers follow:

In most key art associated with the game, we see Kong smashing a fist into the ground, throwing up a shower of rocks and rubble, with the purple, rock-like Odd Rock behind him. The image on the Korean website essentially showed the same, but with one key difference: Odd Rock is missing, and a young Pauline is holding on for dear life to Kong's necktie.

This is the first time Pauline's been acknowledged in any of the images, teaser trailers, or hands-on previews shown thus far, suggesting Nintendo was perhaps hoping to keep her appearance a surprise. Whoops!

More intriguingly still, Pauline's young age suggests Donkey Kong Bananza could be a prequel of some sort — although again, Nintendo's tight-lipped on that for now.

"I think Bananza is on track to be one of the most gorgeous Nintendo games I’ve seen," we wrote in our Donkey Kong Bananza first hands-on preview. "It really does take advantage of Switch 2's hardware — the environments are beautiful and DK’s animations are wonderfully expressive, and I left feeling like the next generation of first-party Nintendo games had truly arrived."

Now that we finally have a release date and tech specs on the highly anticipated Switch successor, Nintendo Switch 2 — as well as an idea of how much first-party Nintendo games may cost on the new system — check out our deep dive into all the facts as we talk to industry experts.

For more on Nintendo Switch 2, you can catch up on everything shown at last week's Nintendo Direct. Donkey Kong Bananza comes out July 17 for $69.99, exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2.

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.