Image: Nintendo
There is a lot to be distracted by in the Donkey Kong Bananza DLC. It might be the beautifully reimagined DK Island, the fast and frantic Emerald Rush mode or… actually, that’s about it. But those are two pretty distracting things! Distracting enough, we’d say, for a sneaky Easter Egg to slip under the radar.
If you had asked us yesterday whether we spotted the Namco reference in the DKB DLC, then all you would have got in return is a blank stare — and that’s with near enough 10 hours of Emerald Rush roguelike runs under our belts. But modding extraordinaire Christa Lee has opened our eyes. What’s been seen cannot be unseen.
Okay, let’s cut to the chase. When you finish an Emerald Rush run, DK’s VoidCo employee card pops up on screen so you can see all the rewards you’ve pulled in. But if you take a closer look at the platforming primate’s employee number, you’ll see a pretty recognisable series of digits (if you’re a Pac-Man fan, that is): 7650.
….did bandai namco work on this
— christa lee (@ohpoorpup.bsky.social) 2025-09-18T05:46:20.492Z
For those not in the know, 7,650 is the maximum number of points you can pick up in a Pac-Man game. It’s a recurring figure that cropped up in a bunch of Namco-developed titles, apparently due to the numbers’ gorowase substitutions sounding like the company name (7=’Na’, 6=’Mu’, 5=’Ko’, 0=’O’).
Now, sure, its appearance in the Bananza DLC could be a complete coincidence, but we doubt it. Nintendo clearly has knowledge of it — remember the Wii U Smash Bros. ‘The Big 7650!‘ event? Yep, we forgot it too — so we think the employee number is a nice nod to the high-score-achievers and arcade originators of the past.
We have smashed our way through the DLC’s interactive credits, and we saw no sign of Bandai Namco having done any work on it. Then again, the studio has paired up with Nintendo on various things in the past, so this isn’t to say that the team had no sway over the roguelike add-on.
It’s a neat little nod, and one that definitely would have passed us by had it not been pointed out to us (so that’s for the heads up, Christa!). We had a good time with the DK Island & Emerald Rush DLC, praising the fast and fun roguelike mode, but feeling a little short-changed by the rest of the experience. You can find our full thoughts in the review below.
Did you notice this Namco nod in the DKB DLC? Let us know in the comments.
[source bsky.app]
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Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since.