Everyone's favourite is back, taking full advantage of the Switch 2.
Mario Kart World is out now, and Stevivor’s got a head start on our review thanks to hours of hands-on time provided by Nintendo Australia.
We’ll break up this preview-slash-review-in-progress — cause I’m writing both and it’ll make no sense to start again fresh tomorrow — into gameplay chunks, alongside some recent capture to back up our words.
An interconnected open world
Mario Kart World takes Nintendo’s long-running formula and adds an open world to proceedings. This means that larger races actually take place across multiple courses, and that you could — theoretically — travel from one end of the large world map the other. There are things to do in free-roam, but the level to which you will enjoy those activities may vary.
P Switches are littered throughout the map, each providing a challenge of some sort. These efforts range from ridiculously easy — get from point A to point B within a certain amount of time — or ridiculously difficult, with seemingly no way to tell what you’re going to get before you jump in.
Those latter challenges include the likes of parkouring your kart up and across a series of walls, requiring you to wall-jump higher and higher to hit set checkpoints. I honestly have no idea how I’d ever be able to accomplish that feat.
Other challenges present themselves organically — an opponent suddenly drove into view ahead of me at one point, and I received a challenge to take him out. Said opponent was actually helpful in that regard, dropping Question Boxes full of green shells for me so I could line him up and knock him off course. I also was challenged to chase down a Nabbit, but ran out of time in our hands-on session to see what catching it would reward me with.
Other Question Boxes are built in to the road itself, but floating above and packed with goodies as we’re used to. From what I can tell, finding them will help to unlock stickers that you can customise your racer with.
You can also chase down Dash Food — or packed lunches, as I like to call them — in the open world as well as in races. Some food will change your character’s clothing, also unlocking that new option inside your character select screen. I also found that in-race transformations — for better or worse — also unlocked options in said screen. And when I say there are a number of characters to choose from in World, that’s an understatement. Prepare yourselves accordingly.
Something that the open world shows off, for better or worse, is the concept of rails and grinding said rails. There’s a lot of both involved in Mario Kart World, and while they might involve some sort of shortcut or the like, they’re kind of boring. You don’t need to steer, you just need to sit there and watch as you speed along. They’re ho-hum.
Knockout Tour
Apart from the open world change, Knockout Tour is arguably Mario Kart World‘s biggest addition, a battle royale mode where many eventually become one solitary winner.
Knockout Tour is incredibly chaotic — the general rule of ‘don’t be in first place far before the end of the race or you’ll get pummelled with Blue Shells’ applies to each leg of the race, meaning you want to try to balance the rubber banding of doing either too well or too poorly. My video below shows my attempt at this; while I was in fourth spot near the checkpoint that only allowed the top four racers to charge the end, that changed on a dime, and because of a barrage of Green Shells.
I’ve played a bunch of rounds of Knockout Tour, and have adored each one. Post-launched, I’ve jumped into several online matches alone and in split-screen with the hubby; our only complaint there is that we couldn’t figure out how to keep progression for both of us going at the same time.
Multiplayer modes
I’ve had hands-on with a range of multiplayer modes, from split-screen with Switch 2 Cameras, to Battle and Coin Runners with up to 24 racers, real or NPC.
As you can see in the clip above, Switch 2 Camera support will let your opponents see just how much you need to concentrate in order to pull off a win. I likely will never ever hook a camera up to my Switch 2 accordingly.
Battle mode offers up the classic chance to break the balloons of 23 other opponents, or mix it up with Coin Runners. Here, you’re charged to gather coins — and this can be bolstered by attacking others so they lose their coins, then grabbing them from the course. I did better in Coin Runners as I think most I was playing against went into things with a balloon mentality rather than a hoarding one, if I’m being honest. Like in shooters with objectives being kills, most people just want to go in for said kills.
Speaking of coins, multiplayer also provided a great chance to check out new (newish?) items like the Gold Shell, one that you can fire ahead of you to attempt to knockout opponents. It also releases a chain of Gold Coins in its wake, allowing you to also benefit by collecting said coins and gaining a speed boost.
All up, Mario Kart World is ridiculous fun, alone or in a group… but as my husband said to me at 8pm on the launch day of the Switch 2, “there’s only so much Mario Kart you can play”. Nevertheless, we’re both keen to host friends to not only show off the new racer, but what the Switch 2 can do accordingly. Let’s just hope that Nintendo can broaden what’s available in-game quickly, akin to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. While we’re waiting for more Switch 2 games, we need more World.
Mario Kart World is out now, alongside the Switch 2.
Stevivor travelled to Nintendo Australia on its own budget to attend a Switch 2 and Mario Kart World preview. This review was started there and was finalised using a retail code purchased by the reviewer.
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Mario Kart World5 June 2025Switch 2 |
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