Expedition 33" to big console exclusives like "Donkey Kong Bananza" and "Death Stranding 2," NPR staff and contributors round up their favorite games of the year so far.

There's also a sense of persistence in Bananza. You can create little home bases that let you rest up and change outfits. You'll meander off and come back to locations. Mario Odyssey had some of this too, but Bananza feels more lived in.

Donkey Kong Bananza, launching next week, is a Switch 2 exclusive. But that wasn’t always the case. According to Nintendo, it was originally conceived as a Switch 1 title.