Mario Kart (Series)

Mario Kart is a series of kart racing games developed and published primarily by Nintendo as a spin-off of its flagship Super Mario franchise.¹³ The series was inaugurated in 1992 with Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, a game that was both critically and commercially successful.¹³ Across sixteen titles there had been ten main entries, a home console port, four arcade games, a mobile game, and an RC-based game, with at least one game each appearing on nearly every succeeding Nintendo console.¹³ The games have sold a combined total of over 150 million copies worldwide.¹³

Origins

The modern series traces its spiritual origins to the Famicom Grand Prix games, released for the Japan-only Family Computer Disk System add-on, which were the first Nintendo racing games to feature Mario as a player character.¹³ The immediate impetus came after the Japanese launch of F-Zero, a single-player-only SNES racing game, when Nintendo developers decided to create a two-player racing game for the console as a follow-up.¹³³ They built a prototype featuring a generic “guy in overalls”; the team decided to incorporate Super Mario characters after adding Mario driving a kart out of curiosity about how it would look, and were satisfied with the result.¹³ Development of the first game was overseen by Shigeru Miyamoto, then general manager of Nintendo’s EAD division.¹³ To get the game’s feel right, Miyamoto and his team spent time at go-kart raceways studying how the karts moved through the tracks.³

Released on the SNES on August 27, 1992, Super Mario Kart introduced a formula that has remained largely intact for more than three decades, encapsulating Nintendo’s “easy to pick up, difficult to master” design philosophy.¹³²⁰ It was designed from the ground up for two-player split-screen; in single-player the developers filled the lower half of the screen with a map or rear-view mirror rather than stretching the image.¹⁸ The debut already carried much of the series’ furniture: eight characters, twenty tracks split across four circuits, time trials, a battle mode, and the core items, along with drifting, starting boosts, and the ability to throw items backward.¹⁸ Its most notable multiplayer feature beyond the Grand Prix mode was a Battle Mode pitting two players against each other as they tried to pop balloons attached to their karts by shooting shells.³

Gameplay

Players compete in go-kart races across single-player and multiplayer modes, controlling one of a selection of Super Mario characters.¹³ Originally eight characters could compete in each race; this was raised to twelve in Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8, and to twenty-four in Mario Kart World.¹³ In most games Lakitu handles the countdown at the starting grid and rescues racers who fall off the track, dropping them back onto a nearby section.¹³

Question-mark item boxes arrayed on courses dispense items such as the Dash Mushroom, which gives a speed boost; Koopa Shells, offensive projectiles that stun targets; Banana Peels, dropped onto the road as obstacles; and the Super Star, which renders the user temporarily invulnerable and damaging to other racers.¹³ The type of item received is heavily influenced by a player’s position: those lagging behind receive more powerful items while the leader receives small defensive ones, a catch-up mechanic designed to give other players a realistic chance to overtake the leader.¹³⁴ The series also features maneuvers including drifting (or power-sliding) and hopping, and later games introduced new vehicle types such as standard bikes, sport bikes, and ATVs.¹³

Console evolution

Mario Kart 64, released in Japan on December 14, 1996, and in North America on February 10, 1997, was the series’ first sequel.³⁴ The game moved courses into 3D, with hills, ramps, and slopes replacing the flat 2D barriers of its predecessor, while characters and karts remained 2D sprites.⁴¹⁸ It introduced four-player split-screen racing—the feature that made Mario Kart synonymous with birthday parties and sleepovers—added Wario and Donkey Kong to the roster, was the first entry to give each character and kart distinct stats, and introduced Mirror Mode.¹⁶¹⁸ Its tracks included what became series staples such as Toad’s Turnpike and a three-dimensional Rainbow Road.¹⁸

Mario Kart 64 Nintendo Switch 2 Gameplay ReviewSkycaptin5

Subsequent entries appeared on nearly every Nintendo console. Mario Kart: Super Circuit, released for the Game Boy Advance in 2001, was the first portable and first handheld entry; it paired refined mechanics with visuals evolved from the SNES original and packed in forty tracks, comprising new courses plus the twenty original SNES tracks as unlockables.¹⁵¹⁸ Retrospective critics rate it among the weakest mainline games, faulting a shoddy draw distance and flat textures.¹⁵²⁰ Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, released for the GameCube in 2003, introduced two riders per kart—one steering, one throwing—enabling co-op play, character-specific items, and a choice of karts with differing stats.¹⁶¹⁸ Mario Kart DS followed in 2005 and was the first entry to feature online multiplayer.¹⁸ Mario Kart 7, released for the 3DS in 2011, introduced hang-gliders, underwater driving, and kart customization, all of which became central to later games.²⁰

Mario Kart 8 launched for the Wii U in 2014.⁶ Its enhanced port, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, was released for the Nintendo Switch on April 28, 2017, and became one of the platform’s defining titles.⁷ The Deluxe edition bundled all of the Wii U game’s downloadable content and added a revamped Battle Mode with five objective-based modes—Balloon Battle, Shine Thief, Bob-omb Blast, Coin Runners, and Renegade Roundup—the ability to hold two items at once, and the Splatoon Inklings among 42 characters and 48 courses.⁶ From March 2022 the game received the Booster Course Pass, six waves of eight remastered courses each drawn from earlier Mario Kart games and from Mario Kart Tour, sold for $24.99 or bundled with the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack; the pass ultimately expanded the roster to include newcomers such as Birdo.⁸⁹

Mario Kart 8 - ReviewGameSpot

Mario Kart Tour

A free-to-start mobile entry, Mario Kart Tour, launched in September 2019 for iOS and Android, following Nintendo’s mid-2010s decision to release its properties on smartphones.¹⁰¹⁵ It reduced controls to touch steering, with acceleration and boosts handled automatically, and organized play into biweekly rotating “tours” featuring courses inspired by real-world cities alongside classic Mario Kart courses.¹⁴¹⁵ It added a Frenzy mode granting an unlimited supply of a single item and temporary invincibility, and let players collect drivers, karts, gliders, and badges.¹⁴ Many of its city-based courses were later upscaled and folded into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.¹⁵ The game’s monetization drew criticism: at launch it sold random drivers, karts, and gliders through a gacha “Pipe” that could cost players hundreds of dollars for particular limited-time drivers, a feature Nintendo removed in October 2022 in favor of a rotating Spotlight Shop.¹⁰¹¹

Mario Kart World and the Switch 2

Mario Kart World launched exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5, 2025, the same day as the console, making it the first new home-console Mario Kart in a decade.¹⁷¹⁹ It supports up to 24 drivers in each race, the most in series history and double the limit of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which allowed up to twelve.¹²¹⁷ The game lets players drive off the racetrack and explore a connected open world across regions that span the globe, with atmosphere changing by time of day and weather.¹⁷ In the classic Grand Prix, players race four courses in sequence, driving to each subsequent course as part of the competition.¹⁷ It introduces a Knockout Tour mode in which racers run non-stop through back-to-back courses, eliminating those below a placement threshold at each checkpoint, and a Free Roam mode for exploring, collecting items, and taking photos with friends.¹⁷²¹ Reviewers likened its open-world driving to Forza Horizon and its collectible-strewn hub to Diddy Kong Racing.²¹

Mario Kart World - Reveal Trailer | Nintendo Switch 2 DirectIGN

Legacy

Super Mario Kart was the first mainstream kart-racing game, and its success spawned many cartoon-style racing games from rival publishers from the 16-bit generation onward.²²¹³ Rival franchises soon put their own casts into go-karts, including Sonic Drift for the Game Gear and later Crash Team Racing.³ IGN credited the game with launching not only the franchise but an entire genre.²⁰ In 2009, Guinness World Records ranked Super Mario Kart the most influential video game of all time, placing it first on a panel-selected list of the top 50 console games judged on initial impact and lasting legacy.¹² The series has been referenced in the Paper Mario role-playing games and inspired several stages in the Super Smash Bros. fighting games.¹³ It remains Nintendo’s premier non-platformer series, having, in the assessment of one critic, arguably eclipsed the Super Mario platformers as the arena through which many players know the character.²⁰