How to Complete the Freezer Layer in Donkey Kong Bananza

Donkey Kong Bananza‘s Freezer Layer introduces players to the Zebra Bananza, but only once you’re able to navigate the first half of the stage and reach the Zebra Elder. Along the way you’ll have to make use of Ice terrain and stalactites to cool lava and create paths across dangerous sections of the map.

The Freezer layer is one of two locations players of Donkey Kong Bananza can choose to visit after reaching the Divide, with the other being the Forest Layer. Unlocking Zebra Bananza in the Freezer layer will provide DK with a substantial upgrade to his speed, allowing him to sprint across wide areas at tremendous speed, assuming his Bananza Energy is full.

Navigate the Deep Freeze

After landing in the Freezer Layer, your first order of business is grabbing that bunch of Banandium Gems that fell down ahead of you. With that handled, you can head down the path to find a snowboarding slope and a chunk of terrain just begging for you to turf surf it. Grab it and ride down the slope to meet a Zebra, who’ll give you your first main objective for this Layer: Cross the Crumbly Bridge and see what’s going on. Heading for the spot he marked, preferably by turf surfing, you’ll find some more Zebra hanging around near the bridge. Speaking to one of them will have them explain that something’s wrong with the cooling tower and they’d like you to investigate.

Complicating the matter of investigating the cooling tower, the crumbly bridge is made of a crumbly material that will drop out from under you, and DK isn’t fast enough to cross it. Luckily, there’s an alternative, but slower, route directly beneath the bridge, so drop down there and head into the caves. Inside these caves you’ll encounter two major obstacles, lava terrain and rolling enemies. Luckily, we can use the latter to deal with the former. Just punch them once to shatter their shell, then hit them again to send them flying away from you. If you aim them at the lava terrain they’ll clear it away as they fly, and if you need to clear any more you can hit it with ice or snow terrain to cool it, then break it with a punch.

Use these techniques to navigate up through the caves until you arrive at the far side of the crumbly bridge, then continue onward to find a village and the path to the cooling tower. A Zebra near the bridge to the cooling tower will point out that you can’t cross the bridge for the same reason that you couldn’t cross crumbly bridge earlier, and suggest meeting with the Zebra Elder to learn a new Bananza that can help. This will mark a new destination for you.

Find the Elder

Your next destination is Coolstripe Cavern, but it’s blocked by more of that purple material we keep seeing. You can find the machine producing it hidden inside a house nearby (see image 1 above) and once you’ve broken it you can use a machine near the cavern entrance to blow away the rocks and head inside.

Snag a Banandium Gem on the way inside and skate across the ice, taking out the rolling enemies as you go. Following the cavern will lead you to a hall filled with falling stalactites. After passing them, you’ll reach a gap with a stalactite hanging over it. Hitting the stalactite with a chunk of thrown terrain will cause it to fall, creating a path forward. Rinse and repeat this as you proceed through the caves to create a path for yourself. Take the opportunity to build a getaway and heal up if needed once you reach the area shown in image 2.

Continue traversing the cave, using stalactites to bridge gaps, and soon you’ll reach an area where you need to scale an icy wall to proceed, with an enemy nearby. Smacking the enemy toward the wall will strip away the ice, revealing a climbable layer beneath it that you can use to head on up. Hit the checkpoint and continue on to find a Zebra looking down at a Void Stake. To reach it you’ll need to clear away some of the lava terrain on the wall, which you can do in the same way you cleared the ice off the previous wall, or by throwing ice terrain at it to cool it into obsidian. once the path is clear, climb up to the Void Stake, break it, and head down to the next sublevel.

Down on Sublevel 501, it’s a lot hotter, and you’ll need to make use of ice terrain and stalactites to cool the lava so you can progress further. Build the Getaway nearby for healing and a health boost, then start traversing the islands and moving toward the objective. Whenever you see a shadow of a stalactite hanging over lava, that means it’ll either fall when you get close, cooling the lava and creating a path, or that you can throw something at it to drop it onto the lava, achieving the same effect.

Once you reach the island with the Fractone made of ice standing on it, grab some Ice and use it to cool the lava blocking the path to the island closest to the objective. Here, you can use the Hand Slap to raise a pillar, leading you to a vantage point where you can throw terrain at a huge stalactite and drop it onto the island below. Drop back down, grab chunks out of that stalactite, and throw them to cool the wall of lava terrain until you can climb up to the top and reach the Zebra Village.

At the Zebra Village you can speak to the Elder, who will offer to teach you the Zebra Bananza if you restore the Ancient Record. It’s been split into three pieces, and three zebra nearby will tell you exactly where to go if you speak to them.

Find The Ancient Record Pieces

To find the first Record Piece, follow the path down to the spot shown in the first image above. You’ll need to head over to the ice machine on the left, activate it, and then smash the terrain to redirect the ice into the lava, creating a path to the first piece of the record. Carry it back to the Elder (use it to turf surf over lava as needed, it can’t break) and then head back in the same direction again to look for the second piece.

You’ll need to climb up to the spot shown in image 1, which leads you to some cooling fans. Get rid of the machine coating them in purple stuff and they’ll start rotating, allowing you to reach the underside of the second fan and hang from it, using the fans as a path to reach the second Ancient Record Piece.

To get the third record piece, head toward the area shown in the first image, and use stalactites and ice to cool a path over to the machine creating the purple material. Break it, then double back and grab the Record, using it to turf surf over lava as needed and make it back to the Elder. Complete the Elder’s tutorial on Zebra Bananza, and now it’s time to head back to the cooling tower.

Repair the Cooling Tower

Use the shortcut cannon in the Village to get back up to the Cooling Tower, and use your new Zebra Bananza to follow the crumbling path all the way up to the top and get inside. Clear away the snow on the floor to find a spot where you can dig down to get inside the cooling tower proper, where you’ll trigger a boss fight with Poppy Kong.

Poppy Kong turns herself invisible, but you can easily handle her by using Zebra Bananza, working out where she is from the terrain she breaks as she moves, and charging into her to stun her. Repeat this three times to win the battle in no time at all. After she’s beaten, speak to her to snag the key that’ll open the path leading further down.

On the next floor of the Cooling Tower, you’ll find a Zebra and an Ice Machine. Speak to the Zebra to learn where the path to the next floor is, then dig a path under the ice machine to direct the falling ice onto the lava, cooling it and allowing you to dig down to the next floor.

On this new sublevel, head right for the big tower in the middle, which has an ice machine switch on it, and pull the switch. Then head to the area to the left of the tower where a crumbly path will build itself as you run on it. Use Zebra Bananza to run across this path and reach the ice machine, where you can then break the blockage and cause ice to fall down toward the lava walls up ahead. once they cool part of the lava wall, use Kong Bananza’s charged punch to blow a hole in the lava wall, rinse and repeat until you’ve made a path of obsidian all the way to the Condenser.

Jump into the Condenser to reach the final boss of the Freezer Layer.