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The first new Mario Kart game in over a decade also has one of the best open world environments ever but what’s it like to play with a dozen other people?
You’re probably wondering why we’re doing another preview of Mario Kart World (and Welcome Tour) just a few days before the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 but as has just been announced, Nintendo is not sending out review consoles or games until much closer to launch. We’ll still have a review in progress ready for you this week, but not a final, scored review.
You can read about the delay in detail in the article linked above but we don’t think Nintendo is purposefully trying to hide anything – this certainly doesn’t seem to be a Starfield situation. On the contrary, they’ve gone out of their way to host as many preview events as possible and after the one in April we got to spend even more time with Mario Kart World earlier this month.
It was a good four or five hours in total, giving us a chance to explore the open world environment on our own and play all the many different multiplayer modes, including making use of GameChat (or at least the camera functions of it). You’ll be unsurprised to know it was really good, although we were even more excited to find out we were quite good at it – even if we never won a Knockout match.
The success of Mario Kart (Mario Kart 8 has sold over 76 million copies, making it second only to GTA 5 in terms of traditional games) is built on its straightforward premise and instant accessibility. Naturally, that hasn’t changed for Mario Kart World, although until now we had been uncertain as to exactly how the normal Grand Prix mode and the open world integrate.
To be honest, we still have some questions – primarily in terms of the volume of ad hoc missions and secrets when free roaming – and that’s something we’re going to need a full review to answer.
What is becoming clear though is that the standard Grand Prix mode, and the new Knockout mode, are more separated from the open world than we initially thought. You select both from a menu, in the usual manner, and while they do take place within the open world – and you can visit the courses separately in free roam mode – during each race access roads are closed off and everything looks and acts like a normal, linear Mario Kart track.
More or less, at least. Because there are now 24 racers at one time the roads tend to be much wider on many circuits and there’s an abundance of trackside detail, like barriers and electricity pylons, that you can hop onto and ride along, plus far more shortcuts than any of the previous games. In theory, this could lead to races being more formless and disjointed but we didn’t find this to be the case at all.
Unless you’re way out in front (only an occasional problem for us) there’s always plenty of other players nearby and there tends to be a lot of other road traffic as well. AI driven cars have been part of some specific tracks for years now but in World it’s commonplace, with not only ordinary civilian traffic but trucks with Hammer Bros. throwing hammers, Spikes chucking spikey logs, and many more. There’s even giant Goombas and Bullies hanging around in the middle of the road, waiting to chase after people, and all manner of other obstacles.
However, there isn’t always traffic, and the roads can get quite narrow at times, to the point where they feel just like a classic track (many of the courses are in fact remakes of existing ones, although in most cases the changes are significant and they’re barely recognisable).
Races in Mario Kart World are certainly more chaotic than previous games (the way you’re sometimes knocked onto just two wheels is great) with items flying everywhere, more complex level design (wall running works surprisingly well), and much more variety between laps (an influence from Mario Kart Tour, it seems).
Despite that, any concern that the game is going to devolve into a random free-for-all seems unfounded. Playing single-player we consistently did well, always placing first in 50cc and doing exactly as well as we’d normally expect in the faster races.
Skill is still the primary factor in whether you win or lose and while the game will now automatically put items behind your kart as a shield, rather than that being a trick not everyone knows about, the boost drift is still a feature, and difficult to get right. There’s also a new jump boost, useful for getting onto grindable rails and other scenery, which is also hard to learn, as you can’t turn while it’s charging.
Playing against human players also went just as expected and we had no complaints that anything felt unfair or random. In fact, the wider roads actually make things like blue shells and Bullet Bills slightly easier to avoid, at least if you’re not the primary target. We’ve still not played enough to make any kind of final judgement but so far we have no significant concerns about the game’s integrity.
This is certainly true when it comes to the new Knockout mode, which is excellent. It’s very straightforward, in that you’re all racing from track to track, with a hard limit on the position you need to be in order to move on to the next. If the checkpoint gate says ‘16’, for example, and you’re currently 17th then you’re out of the race when you reach it.
If you’re not very good at Mario Kart, and everyone else you’re playing with is, this could potentially get frustrating, but we enjoyed every moment and that seemed to be the consensus of everyone else present too – even though there were only 12 of us and the AI was winning a lot of the time.
There are a number of other modes, including battle mode, which involves either the usual shooting of balloons from the back of rival’s karts or collecting coins (and shooting opponents to steal theirs). Meanwhile, Vs Race has much more customisation options, including the ability to separate the skill of the AI from the speed of the race – if you want to compete against super competent drivers in 50cc.
You can also use this mode to set up what are essentially custom Grand Prix cups, choosing which track you move onto after completing the previous one – but only if it’s close by on the map. Strangely, this seems to be the only way to interact with the open world on a meta level. We would’ve bet there was going to be some way to organise ad hoc point-to-point races using the map, perhaps by pointing at two different spots with the controller in mouse mode, but there’s nothing like that at all.
Some have compared Mario Kart World to Forza Horizon, but the similarities are not close. The open world in World is amazingly well designed, and filled with secrets, but the most complex activity with any kind of reward attached to it is ‘missions’ activated by P-switches, that involve things like impromptu checkpoint races or extra hard challenges like racing on the back of the wings of a series of seaplanes taking off.
These are all great but otherwise the game doesn’t seem to make as much use of the open world as you’d expect. You can meet up with other players in it, and take photos and chat with them, but if you want to race them you essentially just segue into one of the other modes, rather than seamlessly starting where you are.
So, while Nintendo has been going on about the tracks existing in the same open world, and you having to travel between them for each race, all that really seems to amount to is a rolling start after the first race in a Grand Prix.
Perhaps there’s some feature or element we’re not yet aware of – we have still only played it for a handful of hours – but we don’t think so, as there were Nintendo reps present, explaining how the game works.
It’s strange, but it seems that the open world is rather underutilised. It’s enormous fun to explore but the core gameplay modes would work just as well without it. It’s peculiar that the two aspects of the game seem to be so disconnected, especially as it’s impossible to know whether this is purposeful, an oversight, or an indication of plans for future DLC.
None of this detracts from Mario Kart World being a hugely entertaining game and it also doesn’t change the fact that the open world is one of the best designed we’ve ever seen, whether for a racing game or not. But it may mean that while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the definitive version of the original Mario Kart formula, World is only the start of a new evolutionary path.
Although in a way that’s even more exciting, as it means this new direction for the franchise has plenty to offer both now and in the future.
Formats: Nintendo Switch 2
Price: £74.99 (physical) or £66.99 (digital)
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Release Date: 5th June 2025
Age Rating: 3
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