After years of rumors, the Nintendo Switch 2 finally arrives in two weeks. It’s been a long journey, but that applies even more so for Mario Kart fans, who have waited for a sequel since Mario Kart 8’s launch in 2014 for the Wii U. Mario Kart World takes the series in a new direction with a large world of seamlessly interconnected tracks.
While it’s launching alongside the Switch 2 for $79.99, it originally began development in 2017 for the Nintendo Switch. Producer Kosuke Yabuki revealed in an Ask the Developer interview, “We were thinking about what to do for the next Mario Kart game even during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and we began prototyping in March 2017. It was at the end of that year when we officially started work on it as a project.”
The team didn’t want to add more courses and call it a day (else it would’ve been called Mario Kart 9). “We wanted to take the series to the next level,” said Yabuki. “So, we decided to drop the numbering this time and go with a completely new title, Mario Kart World. So, we’d already added ‘Mario Kart World‘ to the concept art from the early stages of development.
“In previous Mario Kart games, after finishing a course, you’d move on to the next course. However, I thought that with modern technology, being able to seamlessly transition between courses and realize a single, vast world wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. So, with this in mind, we set out to create a new kind of Mario Kart…And that’s when all our troubles began.”
Since Mario Kart 8 featured 12 players, the development team wanted to increase it to 24 to suit the larger world. However, programming director Kenta Sato noted this was difficult on the Switch 1.
“When we were developing for the Nintendo Switch system, it was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return. We discussed things like toning down the visuals and lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 fps in some cases. It was a tough situation.
“We worked on it while kicking the can down the road in terms of deciding what to give up on, so, at some point, we knew it was going to get messy. But as we’d decided to release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe — Booster Course Pass, we thought that would give us a bit more time to continue development.” The decision to move it to the Nintendo Switch “suddenly opened up a bunch of possibilities on what we could do,” with Sato saying, “It was truly a ray of hope.”
Mario Kart World and the Nintendo Switch 2 launch on June 5th. You can purchase both in a bundle for $499.99, but supplies are limited and it won’t be available past this Fall.
Head here to learn more about the new courses, dozens of new drivers and new power-ups or here for details on new features like Rewind. You can also check out our feature for all the latest information.
