Mario Kart World Hands-On: The Conservative Switch 2 Gets A Bold Sequel

Mario Kart World is, above all, a damn hoot. The headliner for the new Switch 2 is clearly following in the footsteps (or tire tracks) of the Switch's Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which has been remarkably successful despite being a port of a Wii U game first released in 2014. It would have been easy for Nintendo to rest on its laurels and give us another game similar to MK8, but World feels like a real evolution of the franchise. It borrows and expands upon what worked, while rethinking other aspects entirely.

As many noted following the Switch 2 debut trailer, races now support up to 24 racers simultaneously. Such a high player count necessitates a massively expanded roster, but Nintendo zigged on us with tons of new and unexpected inclusions like Nabbit and the extremely entertaining Cow. Yes, it is 100% just the pleasantly plump cow from Moo Moo Meadows, and she is named Cow. I would die for her. We didn't see the full roster during this demo session, but the character-select screen contained tons of variety regardless.

That's partly due to another new wrinkle: character costumes. Each character has a variety of looks they can don, from their classic styles to traditional racing gear to more personalized and inventive ensembles. I raced as Toad wearing a burger hat, a Shy Guy wearing ski gear (complete with a beanie), and Toadette with a makeover that made her little pigtails look like glistening ice cream. Bowser had an old-school biker look. Luigi could dress up like a straw-hat farmer. The list goes on and on, and I felt delighted seeing how the costumes accented the personalities of these lovable cartoon characters that I've gotten to know over the years. The character costumes were displayed as full options in the character-select menu--regular Mario and racing-suit Mario are two separate options, for example--so I assume there will be some way to mark your favorites.

This demo didn't make it particularly clear how new costumes would be obtained, but it did offer some hints. Coins are still present a la Mario Kart 8, but the visual limit of 10 has been done away with, or at least vastly increased to the point that I never hit it. That could suggest that you'll be encouraged to gather more coins in a given match and use them for unlockables. There are also new Lunch Bags to collect just like item boxes, but instead of a weapon or boost, it just fills your item slot with a little snack. Using the item will sometimes randomly change your racer's costume, which is how my ice cream Toadette became a racing-gear Toadette, complete with a shiny helmet sporting her toadstool polka dot pattern.

The racing fundamentals haven't changed much from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which makes sense as that game has polished its moment-to-moment gameplay to a mirror shine. There is some more variety now that the karts transform to race across the water, introducing a Wave Race-like element. And within the races themselves, the tracks are just bursting with activity and personality. The roads are more full of activity, from a bustling traffic jam creating a back-up on one side of the road to a herd of chubby little zebras galloping in the savannah. Everywhere you turn there's another recognizable bit of semi-obscure Mario ephemera, like the Charging Chucks from Super Mario World coming straight towards you, or a new variant of Super Mario 64's flat-bodied Whomps--this one happens to have a sloped back, so when it faceplants you can use it as a ramp. And the art style is more expressive and cartoonish than ever, complete with a big "KABOOM" spelled out inside a bomb explosion.

True to its name, Mario Kart World feels like a massive playground to explore. Mario Kart has experimented with races that take place over a straight stretch of road with checkpoints serving as the "laps," and that's a major element in Mario Kart World. This is a who's who of recognizable and beloved parts of Mario Kart tracks, joined and remixed together. You might race past the swirling sand vortex from Dry Dry Desert and then straight into the clouds from Cloudtop Cruise. With the addition of day-night and weather elements, the tracks felt consistently surprising.

The scope feels especially apparent in Free Roam mode. You can simply explore, pick up Lunch Boxes and other goodies, and experiment with different pathways. I thought that a free-roaming mode in a Mario Kart game sounded dull until I tried it. The world is so packed with things to try that I kept finding new toys to tinker with. A specially marked truck lets you take it over, ramming into traffic. Pipes let you grind down them like Tony Hawk. At one point I accidentally missed the road and went straight into the moat surrounding Peach's castle, instinctively expecting Lakitu to pick me up and put me back on track. Nope, instead I just started driving around in the water, my kart transformed into a boat.

Free Roam mode is the default lobby system as you wait to fill up a Knockout Tour. This new mode continuously eliminates players in batches as you reach checkpoints with different thresholds. It's some of the most tense and chaotic action I've seen in Mario Kart, as dozens of players fight to hold onto their positions, rapidly swapping positions. It's not entirely novel for a racing game, but it feels especially great in this game thanks to the expanded player count and Mario Kart's renowned wackiness.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe felt like a culmination of a classic style of Mario Kart, taking those concepts as far as they could go. Mario Kart World looks to be the ambitious successor, introducing a bevy of new ideas centered around fun surprises, all while keeping the series' personality.

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