Review
Played on: Switch 2
Released: 2025
Although MK8 debuted on the commercially failed Wii U, it sold a healthy 8+ million copies and after being re-released as a Deluxe version on the Switch, it's grown to become the bestselling racer of all time with over 60 million copies sold. Deluxe expanded the experience even further with a hefty booster pack, releasing extra content, massively expanding the package to a whopping 96 racetracks!
Following such a success story is tricky, especially on a new platform. Yet, releasing it early on the Switch 2 allows it to grow with the sales of the console. Nintendo first party has an insane sell-in rate in comparison with console sales, and it's indeed the way my family bought it; in a Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle!
This time around the developers have cleverly aimed at doing something different entirely to the previous entry, like Nintendo often do, but have they hit the sweet spot between innovation, familiarity and ambition in Mario Kart World?
Let’s gather up some shells and hit the road for a closer look!
As the title screen appears, you spot Mario speeding away in an open world in the background, and as you enter the main menu, you'll spot the icon for the Plus button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Press it, and you're immediately in control of Mario and can drive about in the open world!
Why it's an almost hidden shortcut like this I don't know, but it's a satisfying press to suddenly enter the freedom of Mario Kart in a free roaming world! It goes hand in hand with Nintendo's transition to more open-ended designs seen in Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda: The Breath of The Wild.
As to why this open world isn't set front and foremost as the main mode is baffling to me. It should've had an intro, story segments and campaign all the way through the Mushroom Kingdom to a boss race with Bowser. I'll come back to this missed opportunity later.
The main menu consists of familiar options we've seen in many Mario Kart releases; Single Player, Multiplayer, Online and Wireless play. Single player is self-explanatory, here you can enter: Grand Prix, which is the classic four race cup system seen in any Mario Kart to date, with a twist; races also contain the journey to the next racetrack on the open world map. It's fully integrated into the race with laps and such, but it's neat feeling of driving through ordinary roads to get to the next stadium.
Knockout Tour, the second choice, is unique to MKW; it's basically elimination but with one long stage with six segments. Each tour takes about 15 minutes, giving a sensation of a long rally and utilising the open world map, albeit the route from start to finish is locked by racetrack walls. At each segment goalpost, more racers are eliminated, so you'll need to stay above the required placement to continue the race! To win you'll have to reach the end goal in first place.
There's also traditional Time Trials, which need to further introduction. Then we have VS Race, which allows you to set up your own cup. Which, in turn, can be segmented into up to four teams, custom power-ups and choosing not only racetracks, but the routes between them. Battle mode is either eliminating all players balloons or collecting coins, again it supports up to four teams!
Multiplayer supports all these modes local with 2-4 players in splitscreen; 2 player keeps the smooth 60fps, even in free roaming the open world, while 3-4 player gets capped at a less responsive 30 fps. Much the same way MK8 was. A noticeable change, across all modes, is that the total amount of racers in each race is 24 versus MK8s rather small number of 12. It makes for some hectic scenes with all the racers battling it out in chaotic pileups.
What's baffling, though, is that the open world can only be accessed by starting the wireless mode, intended for connecting two Switch 2 consoles together wirelessly, resulting in a "waiting for other players to join" text at the bottom of the screen at all times. Why on earth isn't there a dedicated "free roam" option under the 2-player local options too, outside of the wireless play?!
Speeding about together in the open world is really fun, my kids loved it and although you can't race to separate parts of the map, limited to stay fairly near each other, it's wonderful way to explore.
So far, a pretty standard Mario Kart setup, retaining complaints I had with MK8; it's just a checklist of cups and tournaments to complete for gold cups, then again maybe that's fine?! Completing them all in various engine volumes, 50cc, 100cc and 150cc, is a standard affair by now. I guess the new racetracks are the variety and temptation here! Although the knockout tour mixes it up a little, they too are just a checklist of gold cups to complete.
The star of the show here, is the open world and I need to circle round to talk about it in more detail. Why I love the concept, but also why I find it severely undercooked.
MK8's lack of story segments or a proper campaign does unwelcome return; the open world severely misses out on featuring a proper campaign, with story cutscenes utilising the classic Super Mario characters. Even small titbits like a scene depicting character banter before a race is missing, with titles as far back as SSX Tricky doing this. It would go perfectly along with the lore of the Super Mario franchise.
An overall exploration goal to the open world would've been fun too. Some kind, any kind, of progress or campaign. Like I mentioned earlier; having to finally race Bowser and gain access to his castle or something on the large map?! As it stands, the open world is heavily underplayed; it serves little purpose outside of collecting coins for new karts, doing a few challenges with even more coins as a price and dropping by fast food stores for character outfits.
There are some questionable choices been made, which I find baffling.A Compare it to a massive free roaming racer like the Forza Horizon franchise, which has a ton of content to dig into both offline and online, and the steep price of Mario Kart World becomes harder to swallow. Where are even point-to-point races, with no boundaries or walls, speeding across segments of the map for instance? Festivals, events, story segments, etc. it just feels like a barren, unused space.
Unless they add content down the road, this has to be an extremely missed opportunity with such a visually charming world created for what seems so shallow. We need more of that Nintendo magic!
Visually, we have a strong title with a 1440p resolution, rock solid 60fps and modern lighting engine to bring all the characters and the Mushroom Kingdom to life. There's a ton of detail to check out, with small characters alongside each racetrack. In addition, there's a neat day and night cycle added, as well as dynamic weather effects like rain and snow. The HDR is a noticeable addition for such a colourful game, everything just pops even more!
MK8 has collectively a bigger amount of content and thus an extremely varied visual package in comparison. While MKW offers more subdued transitions between areas on the map with its racetracks, it's visibly a solid upgrade. Even the jump in resolution alone is noticeable as MK8 also seems to lack any good AA implementation in its rather jaggy 1080p image quality.
Remember, MK8 was a Wii U title, in the ballpark of an Xbox 360 & PS3 visually, so MKW comes off as more modern presentation in visuals. The jump in visuals at first glance though, doesn't seem like a massive one. Spending time with the game, however, then swapping back to MK8; the upgrade is very much noticeable.
That said, while the characters look and an animate better and the karts look cool all the way down to the chunky and rubber looking tires, the actual open world can be a bit of a hit and miss in aesthetics. It offers incredible draw distance, but going off-road shows a rather minimal amount of detail, resulting in plain looking areas. In addition, with the dynamic weather we get these less appealing scenarios of hazy fog with reduced colour. Then again most open world titles do.
For my final attempt at working out if MKW hits the mark or not, I decided to turn to my kids. They're, after all, the demographic that can decide what makes a game aimed at kids good or not. My eldest told me one evening after a play session that "the new Mario Kart World is so much better than Mario Kart 8!". "Why so?", I asked, "there’s just so much more characters to unlock, new cool racetracks and I love exploring after the coins and outfits in the open world" was the reply.
And I get it, I do. MK8 has been around for almost ten years now and while this entry cuts back the sheer number and variety of content, it also modernises it considerably and refreshes the way cups and tournaments are done. As well as bringing it visually to modern standards of effects, lighting and texture detail.
For someone not familiar with other open world races it seems to be a perfect match and an enjoyable world to explore. That said, I know they would've loved it even more with a story and progression woven in.
Allowing my playthroughs of various Mario Karts rest at the back of my head, avoiding judging new against old unfairly, I've come to realise that it's a solid entry. It just misses to utilise its strongest side, the open world, at full potential.
Take my complaints as you wish, but perhaps Nintendo sees what my worn-out Mario Kart goggles don’t; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, add tons of content or revolutionise a genre. You just have to please the demographic, and I think they may have done just that, while technically pushing the series into a new generation of hardware.
For a launch title it's a strong one, but at the same time it asks a steep price for a similar experience to the earlier entries and fades in comparison to content packed, open world racer master class, that is the Forza Horizon titles. Take that as you want, but I guarantee you it's charming fun to play as with almost every Mario Kart!
