Mario Kart is one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises, producing the single bestselling game on each of the company’s last four consecutive systems. So it’s understandable that Nintendo chose the party-favourite racing series as an exclusive launch title for its brand-new Switch 2 console. What was less expected is that it would overhaul the design so fundamentally.
While each previous Mario Kart has featured a variety of circuits to choose from, World has a completely open and navigable continent to drive across, taking in deserts, grasslands, cities, jungles, snowfields, wetlands and even lava plains. Where Mario Kart 8 – which was updated over the course of a decade – ended up having close to 100 courses to race in on the original Switch, World has 29 major locations, which can function as traditional circuits but can also be driven past, through and between during exhilarating rallies, with a massive 24 racers taking part.
The result is a game that feels fresh and exciting, even as it keeps everything great about the series. All the major locations, including 16 original concepts and 13 areas inspired by tracks in previous games, are stitched together ingeniously in the open world. So while Toad’s Factory can be raced as a traditional circuit, feeling much like it did originally on the Wii, it’s also a location you can come at from any angle; through the front gates, or directly into the central yard after floating down from an overpass.
Being able to see the towering Bowser’s Castle or DK Spaceport in the distance, or skipping across the ocean from Crown City to Peach Stadium, gives the entire game a cohesion unlike anything previously seen in the series, and the main game modes make great use of that. In the remixed Grand Prix you take a road trip through four locations, with the roads between also serving as part of the race. In the brilliant new Knockout Tour you go on a huge rally, usually coast to coast, with the slowest four racers being eliminated at each checkpoint. And in Free Roam, you can go anywhere you like in the world, completing challenges and hunting collectibles.
Mini challenges are initially everywhere you look in Free Roam, but become hard to find as you tick them off.
Out on the road
Free Roam is a great way to get to know the game without the pressure of racing, and a showcase for the impressive scale of the map. There are more than 100 buttons scattered around that activate tasks from mini races to stunt challenges, as well as panels and coins that can require some tricky driving to get to. I do wish this stuff was easier to track, or resulted in some tangible rewards – each one nets you a sticker you can attach to your character as bragging rights – but as an addition to the core racing platform, it’s a nice option for casual driving.
If you’ve played Mario Kart before, you’ll largely know what to expect from the actual racing. You jockey for position and drift around corners, using items like mushrooms and koopa shells to attack and defend along the way. The most powerful items are only found if you’re further back in the pack, making comebacks commonplace and first position generally fleeting.
For newcomers, you can turn on assists that keep your kart on the right path, accelerate automatically or even decide when to use items.
But this time things have been expanded with new tricks you can perform, heaps of new items, wider and busier roads and way more opportunity for shortcuts and cutoffs. Your vehicle automatically transforms to off-road, jet ski or glider modes as you go, but you’ll also launch it over obstacles or grind up power lines as you find ways to route your rivals. Shells ricochet unpredictably off ambient traffic, items launched from way back are constantly wreaking havoc in the forward pack, and you can even temporarily commandeer trucks, helicopters and other vehicles you find. It’s chaotic.
If you prefer a traditional race, the VS mode still lets you go around each track as a circuit (and there is a hidden 30th course in the clouds separated from the wider world, which series fans will know to expect), but blasting through multiple themes and track types feels much more dynamic. One Grand Prix, for example, has you leaving Wario Stadium via sewer, and racing through aqueducts alongside Bowser’s Castle to get to the Airship Fortress. Meanwhile, one of the Knockout Tours takes you over a Golden-Gate-style bridge, through an African safari and up a magical water spout to floating ruins.
The game has been given a style overhaul with its own characteristic vibe separate from the main Mario series, though absolutely soaked in references to it. The usual cast is here, but can be customised with dozens of silly or adorable costumes, which you unlock by grabbing fast food from roadside sellers. Roads and paths are lousy with randomly appearing hazards, like utes carrying hammer-throwing bad guys or hoards of runaway goombas, and many iconic Mario bad guys can also be selected as racers.
It’s astonishing how circuits from every previous game have been lovingly recreated and integrated into the world, but my favourite bit of nostalgia is the genre-spanning soundtrack. Tunes from all prior Karts – as well as the wider Mario series – appear here as new covers and compositions, from a brilliant punk rock take on N64 Choco Mountain to much deeper cuts from Yoshi’s Story or Mario Land 2. And if you’re not such a Mario sicko that you recognise every one, it’s still an awesome collection of music.
World has the largest and wildest selection of characters of any Mario Kart game.
Unsurprisingly given it’s the flagship launch title of a powerful new console, Mario Kart World is also an exceptionally pretty game, beautifully rendered and meticulously detailed. Even as you slam through the Japan-inspired canals of Cheep Cheep Falls, explosions rippling the sparkling water and creating opportunities for jumps and stunts, you can’t help noticing the animations and flowing materials on all the characters. Stunning reflections, a day-night cycle and heaps of incidental goings-on ensure your surroundings are never static, even if you’re just tooling around in Free Roam.
Going head-to-head
Racing together is the core of Mario Kart, and World offers heaps of options. On the couch with a big TV, you can play with up to four players in traditional split screen, and it makes for as gleeful a family games night or weekend hangout as it did back in the ’90s.
You can play Grand Prix, Knockout Tour, VS and Battle in up to four player splits creen.
Or, if each person has their own Switch 2 and a copy of the game, you can connect wirelessly; eight players are supported with the consoles connected directly, or a full 24 players online or over your local network. There’s also the option to take on all comers in dedicated online race, knockout and battle lobbies, and for all of the above you can have two people playing split screen on a single console.
The VS mode is still my go-to when playing with friends, and it’s largely unchanged; set the options, choose how long you want to be playing, pick a course and go. One notable and appreciated addition is the ability to select not only regular courses but also the roads between; since each course is connected to between five and nine others, that’s a lot of options. You can even set it so that your VS session is one long rally, with players choosing which location to drive to next after each race.
Even Big Donut, a returning battle course, exists in the open world.
If you’d rather fling items at each other, there’s also Balloon Battle (score points by attacking others, but you’re out if you get hit five times) and the more defensive Coin Runners (collect as many coins as you can, but they go flying if you get hit). These modes take place in eight fenced-off arena areas of the open world, and while none of them measure up to the best classic battle courses, they work well given the increased player count.
Nintendo hasn’t always had the greatest of online infrastructure, but the system in Mario Kart World is stable. Playing against groups of random opponents, I was generally matched and racing in less than half a minute. To play with friends, you can invite them directly or create a room and message them the code. It makes for a great virtual gathering, especially while voice chatting. But I do have a few nitpicks about the multiplayer overall.
First, there’s no real way to explore the open world together, locally or online. You’re in a limited version of Free Roam while you’re waiting for the next race to start, but being able to explore freely with friends seems like a no-brainer.
And second, you can’t group up with friends online and then play a competition together. You either play with friends (and, optionally, AI-controlled racers), or you enter the online competitive lobbies by yourself and get matched with random players.
Still, the sheer amount of content here makes Mario Kart World a brilliant start to the Switch 2 era, and a great foundation for the series’ next decade.
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