It is the big flagship for Nintendo’s new console: At launch, “Mario Kart World” is the Japanese game manufacturer’s first own title for the Switch 2, along with 27 other games.
That’s no wonder – the predecessor Mario Kart 8, which was first released over ten years ago, was always among the best-selling titles for the Switch.
“Mario Kart” as a Battle Royale
The big new feature of “Mario Kart World” is in the title: Instead of selecting individual, completed race tracks, everything is in a large, open world. Players can also explore them independently of competitions. Racing game fans will be strongly reminded of “Forza Horizon”.
In addition to the well-known game modes Grand Prix, Time Trial and Versus Race, there is now the “Mario Kart” version of a Battle Royal mode: the so-called Knockout Tour mode. 24 players compete against each other on a long, linear race track. After certain sections of the course, the bottom four places are eliminated from the race until only four remain. Whoever crosses the finish line first wins.
A cow as an early fan favorite
In addition to the usual characters Mario, Peach, Yoshi and Bowser, there are also a lot of newcomers in the lineup. An early fan favorite quickly turned out to be a cow here. And for many of the characters, there are even different costumes.
Whether the content of the game justifies the price of just under 80 euros for the digital version and 90 euros for the physical version: Oh well. So it’s at least the first new “Mario Kart” in many years and the races are fun too. Sometimes the small karts in the race tracks built into a huge game world seem a bit slow and lost. There isn’t much to discover away from the racetracks either – apart from occasional challenges that revolve around collecting coins.
But you can’t go wrong with the launch title for the new Switch. The well-known recipe for success of “Mario Kart” – namely entertaining, colourful and turbulent races with the well-known characters – works.
“Mario Kart World” will be released without age restrictions and only runs on the Nintendo Switch 2, online game modes require a paid membership for Nintendo Switch Online.
However, the game’s flagship is Mario Kart World. It is one of a total of around 25 launch titles, which also include prettified variants of Switch 1 games such as “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom”. The new “Mario Kart World” offers a lot of familiar things: arcade car racing with the Mario characters (new among others: a penguin and a cow), various game modes for the couch or online gaming and, above all, accessible, simple gaming fun.
