Mario Kart World[b] is a 2025 kart racing game developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch 2. As in previous Mario Kart games, players control Mario characters as they race against opponents. World introduces an open-world design and mode, off-roading techniques, an elimination mode, and unlockable costumes for the playable characters. Races support up to 24 players, twice as many as previous Mario Kart games.
EPD began developing Mario Kart World for the Nintendo Switch in 2017, shortly before the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Feeling they had already perfected the core racing gameplay, the team introduced open world elements; the title Mario Kart World was chosen over Mario Kart 9 to signify the new approach. Development moved to the Switch 2 in 2020 due to hardware limitations. The soundtrack, composed by a team led by Atsuko Asahi, features over 200 tracks, including rearrangements of themes from across the Mario franchise.
Nintendo released Mario Kart World on June 5, 2025, as a launch game for the Switch 2. It has sold over five million copies and received positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay and improvements over previous Mario Kart games, but criticism for certain design choices.
Waluigi gliding in mid-air during a race in the Knockout Tour mode
Mario Kart World is a kart racing game. As in previous Mario Kart games, players race as characters from the Mario series in one of many selectable go-karts. The game features 50 playable characters; 24 of the playable characters have alternate unlockable costumes accessed by eating snacks during races, while most of the remaining characters additionally exist as obstacles on the game's tracks.[1][2][3] It supports up to 24 players, twice as many compared to previous Mario Kart games,[4] and includes features such as an open-world design, a free-roaming mode, off-roading segments, boat racing, rail grinding and wall jumping.[5][6]
Unlike prior Mario Kart games, the Grand Prix mode does not consist of four separate races; rather, racers must drive to each course.[7] Outside of Grand Prix, it is possible to race on tracks for three laps like in previous Mario Kart games.[8]Mario Kart World features some past courses from the series that have been reimagined to fit the game's open world design and to include a shift from day to night.[9] In addition, a mode called Knockout Tour is introduced in the game; the 24 racers compete in one much longer race spanning the game's world, with four eliminations at each of the six intermittent checkpoints.[10][11]
Battle Mode returns from previous games; players compete against one another to pop each other's balloons in Balloon Battle or to collect the most coins in Coin Runners.[12] "Mirror Mode", which horizontally inverts the entire map, also returns from the previous games.[13]
Another new mode called "Free Roam" is introduced in World; players are permitted to drive to any location, including those that are off-road or outside of race tracks. Numerous missions, such as finding collectibles, are present in this mode. In addition, players can also take photos of their chosen driver.[12] Rebekah Valentine, writing for IGN, noted the mode's likeness to Forza Horizon (2012), an open world racing game.[14]
Development
"If the idea had just been to add more courses, then I think we would've called it Mario Kart 9. But, that wasn't our approach this time. We wanted to take the series to the next level. So, we decided to drop the numbering this time and go with a completely new title, Mario Kart World."
Nintendo began prototyping Mario Kart World for the Nintendo Switch in March 2017, just before the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. At the end of that year, Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development officially began development on the game. Kosuke Yabuki, series producer, wanted the new entry to innovate on the series' gameplay formula with an open world, as he thought the traditional gameplay formula had been perfected with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The game was titled Mario Kart World instead of Mario Kart 9 since the early stages of development; the developers intended for it to be a completely new approach.[15] Most of the new playable characters also exist as obstacles on the game's tracks; according to art director Masaaki Ishikawa, one of the designers made a sketch of a Cow from the Moo Moo Meadows track driving a truck, leading to many of the course's other obstacles becoming NPC drivers.[16]
In 2020, development was moved to the Nintendo Switch 2 after problems arose when trying to optimize an open-world racing game with 24 players on the original Switch hardware. The Switch 2's hardware specifications were beginning to take shape and gave the developers room to expand on their ideas.[17][18] The "Booster Course Pass" downloadable content for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was also conceived around this time, as a stopgap release to allow development on World to be prolonged.[17]
Music
The soundtrack was composed by Nintendo's music team, led by Atsuko Asahi,[19] who also worked on the music in Mario Kart 8 (2014). She was joined by Maasa Miyoshi, Takuhiro Honda, and Yutaro Takakuwa. For the first time in the series, Nintendo collaborated with external composers to arrange portions of the score, including members of the jazz fusion band Dezolve. In addition, Satoshi Bandoh and Masato Honda from T-Square contributed drums and wind instrument overdubs respectively.[‡ 4]
Mario Kart World introduced dynamic music transitions tailored to the player's progression through various game modes. According to Asahi, course themes were designed with dedicated intros and outros to create smooth transitions between tracks in the Knockout Tour mode, where players race continuously through multiple environments. The music was structured to build anticipation as players approach each course, transitioning seamlessly and creating a medley-like experience. For open-ended modes such as Free Roam, the team implemented a system internally referred to as the "jukebox", which automatically selects and plays from a large library of rearranged tracks. Over 200 original arrangements were created for this system, many of which are new interpretations of themes from past Mario games.[‡ 4]
Release
On January 16, 2025, Nintendo announced the Nintendo Switch 2 with footage of Mario Kart World. Critics likened the art style to Super Mario Bros. Wonder and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, both released in 2023.[20] In a Nintendo Direct presentation on April 2, 2025, Nintendo announced the title Mario Kart World and revealed the first trailer.[21] Nintendo announced that it would sell for US$79.99, $20 more than the standard price for games on the original Nintendo Switch and more than most standard editions of AAA games, which led to controversy.[22][23][24] Nintendo held a Mario Kart World Direct presentation on April 17.[25]Mario Kart World was released in most regions on June 5 alongside the Nintendo Switch 2.[26] It is the first Mario Kart game to release as a launch title for a Nintendo hardware product.[27]
Mario Kart World received "generally favorable" reviews with an average score of 86 out of 100 according to the review aggregation website Metacritic, based on 128 reviews.[28] According to OpenCritic, 97% of critics recommended the game, with a top critic average of 87/100.[29] In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave the game a total score of 36 out of 40, with each critic awarding the game a 9 out of 10.[35]
Logan Plant from IGN praised Mario Kart World for its polished gameplay and controls, "celebratory" soundtrack, new mechanics, and the Knockout Tour mode. He criticized its "online multiplayer limitations", several "design decisions around the interface and unlockables", and the free roam for its "uneven" execution. He expressed optimism toward future updates.[40]Destructoid wrote that it was a "hallmark of excellence" and that it "may be the best game in the Mario Kart franchise", praising the Knockout Tour mode, open-world exploration and unlockable content.[31]PCMag described it as "a generational leap forward for the series".[44]GameSpot praised the new features and gameplay elements, and said the version of Rainbow Road was "an all-time great".[37]The Guardian's Keza MacDonald praised the "broad and ridiculous" selection of racers.[45]Edge called the game's free-roam challenges "decent but unexceptional", but said that they were a good exercise of the driving mechanic, offering something to preoccupy the player's "canine instinct" of quest-completing while waiting for a friend to join the online lobby.[33]
Some criticism was directed at the lack of local co-op multiplayer for the newly introduced "free roam" mode,[47][48] a feature previously reported to be in the game.[14] Reception was mixed regarding the "intermission" courses that connect the racetracks, particularly in online play. Prior to the version 1.1.2 update, online player lobbies favored the "random" gameplay option, which offered traditional three lap-games around one of the 30 courses; after the 1.1.2 update, the 202 connecting courses were added to the "random" option. The update led to the option disproportionately favoring the highway-style connecting courses, leading to player backlash and review bombs on Metacritic.[49][50] Yussef Cole, writing for The New York Times, said that the game is "elegant, but mostly empty of anything terribly meaningful" and that its Free Roam mode does not compete with other open-world racing games such as Forza Horizon (2012) or Burnout Paradise (2008).[51]
Sales
Famitsu reported that Mario Kart World sold 782,566 physical copies in Japan within four days.[52] As of August 3, 2025, it had sold 1,445,628 physical copies in Japan.[53] According to Circana, it was sold with about 79% of the 1.1 million Switch 2 sales in the United States, approximately 869,000 physical copies.[54][55] It also sold about 95,000 copies in Spain.[56]Mario Kart World was the best-selling game on the Nintendo eShop sales charts as of June 2025.[57] As of June 30, Mario Kart World had sold over 5.63 million copies worldwide.[58]
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