‘Super Monkey Ball’ director wants next game to be an open-world adventure

In a new interview, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania director Masao Shirosaki has shared his hopes for the future of the franchise.

Speaking to Everything Nintendo about a new Super Monkey Ball game, Shirosaki said: “I like going on adventures so I want to play a game where I can go on an adventure around the world with AiAi,” suggesting the follow-up to 2012’s Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz could be an open-world adventure game, rather than sticking to the arcade platformer that most games in the franchise have been built around.

“I actually want to know what everyone is expecting of Super Monkey Ball. As with past games, we are very eager to hear what fans think of the new game and what they’d like to see in the future,” continued Shirosaki, who was also involved with the Yakuza series.

Released in time to celebrate the franchise’s twentieth anniversary, Banana Mania launches on October 5 for Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Banana Mania will include more than 300 stages from the series’ 20-year history, chiefly Super Monkey Ball (2001), Super Monkey Ball 2 (2002), and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (2005), all remastered in HD for modern consoles.

It will also include remakes of the series’ various mini-games, including Monkey Racing, Monkey Soccer, Monkey Bowling, and Monkey Baseball.

The series first appeared in Japanese arcades as simply Monkey Ball in 2001, before becoming a hit on Nintendo‘s GameCube later the same year. The series typically challenges players to roll one of its simian mascots – all-rounder AiAi, lighter MeeMee, super-light Baby, and heavyweight GonGon – around floating platforms, tilting the stages themselves to collect bananas and reach the goal, all without falling into the void below.

It’s also been announced that Monkey Ball‘s AiAi will be making an appearance in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. For a brief period of time, an AiAi costume will be available ingame as part of Season 5’s Jungle Adventure.