While Mario Kart World may have just received a rather hefty update, fans of the Switch 2 launch game have been eagerly anticipating any potential DLC that will come to the racer. And a recent datamine of Nintendo Today! has brought all of those hopes and dreams to the surface (thanks, IGN!).

So, some context: earlier this week, Nintendo updated its news app with a suite of Donkey Kong themes, with many of them seemingly inspired by Donkey Kong Bananza.

Fans decided to datamine the themes and see which Kong characters would be appearing in the future and over on Famiboards, user MondoMega shared the results, and there were a few surprises.

Now, beyond this point, we’ll be going into big Donkey Kong Bananza spoilers, so if you haven’t beaten the game yet and want to be surprised, then stop reading right now; the spoilers will be after the image.

It turns out, none other than King K. Rool will be featuring on the app on 15th December. Nintendo has rarely acknowledged the villainous croc in recent years, besides his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Donkey Kong Bananza’s endgame — and his role as the final boss — was a huge surprise to many. Kritters will also be appearing a few days prior, on 9th.

Now, why would Nintendo have K. Rool pop up on the calendar on 15th December? Honestly, it may well be a harmless bit of promotion. Nintendo features multiple characters unrelated to game releases on the app.

But the timing of this update, and all of the assets coming from Bananza (you can see all of the datamined animations on Mario Wiki – beware of spoilers, obviously) has people fervently speculating; will King K. Rool be added to Mario Kart World?

It’s not just baseless speculation, either; shortly after Bananza launched, eagle-eyed players noticed that both King K. Rool and Void Kong’s voices were listed in Mario Kart World’s credits, but neither character was in the game.

So will we be getting some DLC news soon? The Game Awards are next week, but Nintendo rarely makes an appearance at the ceremony, with its biggest announcements there being Bayonetta Origins and a variety of Smash Bros. DLC. Could the Big N buck the trend in 2025? We’ll have to wait and see.

For now, take this with a pinch of salt. We’d love to see K. Rool in a kart, but we won’t get our hopes up just yet.

What do you think of the datamines? Do you think we’ll see some Mario Kart World DLC soon? Drive down to the comments and let us know.