Mario Kart World

Mario Kart World is a 2025 kart racing game developed by Nintendo EPD? and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch 2?, released worldwide on June 5, 2025, as a launch title for the console.¹⁷¹⁰ The thirteenth entry in the Mario Kart series and the first all-new mainline game in over a decade, it reframes the franchise around a single vast, interconnected open world in which players can leave the racetrack and drive in any direction they wish.¹⁰¹³ It was a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive and was not released on the original Switch.¹

The game arrived against the commercial backdrop of its predecessor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe?, the best-selling Switch game with around 65 million copies sold, a position that made World among the most consequential launches of the console generation.¹¹⁰ Mario Kart 8 had originally appeared in 2014 on the Wii U before being re-released as the Deluxe edition on the Switch, leaving World to follow more than a decade of iterations on a single design.¹⁰¹³

The game was first teased in January 2025 as a few seconds of footage in the Nintendo Switch 2 first-look trailer, where observers noted 24 places on the starting line and a redesigned Donkey Kong.⁷² It was formally revealed and named during the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct on April 2, 2025, alongside a launch-day release date.¹⁰¹⁴ A dedicated 15-minute Mario Kart World Direct followed on April 17, 2025, broadcast on Nintendo’s YouTube and Twitch channels, detailing the Free Roam mode and the unlockable outfit system.²¹¹ The game launched at a price of $80, a figure that drew comment in coverage.⁶ Development credits, beyond Nintendo EPD, list Monolith Soft, 1-UP Studio, and Bandai Namco Studios.¹⁷

The game was released worldwide in most territories on June 5, 2025, with later rollouts in the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand on June 26, Malaysia on July 3, Taiwan on July 10, and the United Arab Emirates on September 17.¹⁷ It carries family-friendly ratings across regions, including ESRB “E for Everyone,” PEGI 3, and CERO “A,” and supports seventeen languages.¹⁷

Mario Kart World – Nintendo Direct | Nintendo Switch 2Nintendo of America

Gameplay and modes

As in previous Mario Kart games, players control Mario-series characters racing against opponents while using items, but World doubles the field to 24 simultaneous drivers — the most in series history, up from 12 in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe?.⁴¹³ The racing fundamentals remain close to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, with new wrinkles including off-roading, rail grinding, wall riding, and karts that transform to race across water, an element compared by reviewers to Nintendo’s Wave Race.⁴¹⁰ Customizable kart parts were removed in favor of a wider selection of fixed karts, bikes, trikes, and sleds, a change reviewers found a worthwhile trade for vehicles that feel distinct in weight and handling.¹³¹⁸ The game runs at a stated 60 frames per second in single-player, whether docked or in handheld, and streams its entire interconnected map without loading screens.¹³

The defining feature is the interconnected open world, which contains all but one of the game’s 30 racing circuits, joined by roads ranging from dirt paths to traffic-filled highways.¹³ The traditional Grand Prix was restructured to fit this format: the first course of a cup is played in the conventional three-lap manner, after which players drive across highway sections to each subsequent course before completing a final lap on the stage itself.¹³³ In a Nintendo Treehouse: Live demonstration, the Mushroom Cup was shown as four blended locations — Mario Bros. Circuit, Crown City, Whistlestop Summit, and DK Spaceport — flowing continuously into one another with dynamically changing weather and time of day.³ Mario Bros. Circuit was set in a desert featuring the Yoshi Diner shown in the initial tease, beginning with a standing start over three laps before the track morphed from desert motorway into the cityscape of Crown City.³

The new Knockout Tour mode runs non-stop from one corner of the world to another, eliminating players in batches who fall below a placement threshold at each checkpoint.⁷¹⁴ Free Roam lets players drive anywhere across the world with no racing involved, collecting items, exploring routes, teleporting to specific courses, and using a photo mode at scenic spots, alone or with friends.³¹⁴ Free Roam also serves as the default lobby system while a Knockout Tour fills.⁴ The game supports local wireless play for up to 16 players and online or LAN play for up to 24, with traditional two-to-four-player local multiplayer also retained.¹⁷

World launched with a large roster — IGN counted at least 60 playable characters and outfit variants — including returning faces such as Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Peach alongside unexpected additions like Nabbit and a playable cow drawn from the Moo Moo Meadows course.⁸⁴¹⁰ Reviewers counted roughly 50 racers before costume variants, each handling slightly differently depending on the vehicle chosen.¹⁸ Characters can wear a variety of unlockable costumes, from classic and racing looks to inventive ensembles such as a burger-hatted Toad or a biker Bowser; new costumes are sometimes obtained at random by using “Lunch Bag” items collected during races.⁴⁶ Coins return from earlier games, but their previous visual cap of ten appears to have been removed or vastly raised, suggesting a role in unlocking content.⁴

Lineage and reception

World follows directly from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the best-selling game on the original Switch, and reviewers framed it as the ambitious successor that reinvents the formula while retaining the series’ personality.⁴¹ Its continuous, sectioned courses build on the precedent set by the Mount Wario track in Mario Kart 8?, which ran as one unbroken track split into segments rather than laps.³ The DK Spaceport course was described as clearly inspired by the classic Donkey Kong arcade game, with red rails and giant barrels.³ Reviewers also noted the world packed with deep-cut Mario references, from Charging Chucks out of Super Mario World to a sloped variant of the flat-bodied Whomps of Super Mario 64.⁴ The franchise itself originated as Nintendo’s first attempt at a two-player game in the mold of its futuristic racer F-Zero.²¹²²

Reviews were broadly positive. IGN praised the game’s polish, soundtrack, and controls but argued that going open-world was not the boost the series needed, finding the highway stretches between Grand Prix courses less interesting than the dedicated circuits, particularly given the time spent on long, straight roads to earn three gold stars across all eight cups.¹³ Nintendo Life rated it 8.2, calling it not quite a reinvention but a consistently joyful evolution justified by the 24-racer chaos, while noting the Grand Prix’s restructured laps and oversized Battle Mode maps as drawbacks.¹⁸ The game’s soundtrack, comprising over 200 new arrangements with nods to scores including Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi’s Island, was singled out for praise, though the absence of a song-selection jukebox at launch drew criticism.¹³