Mario Kart World Review – The Switch 2’s First Must-Play Game

Mario Kart World boldly reinvents the genre with open-world racing, fresh mechanics, and incredible charm.

Posted By | On 10th, Jun. 2025

Mario Kart World Review – The Switch 2’s First Must-Play Game

How do you outdo Mario Kart 8? By the time the legendary kart racing game reached the end of its decade plus life in 2025, it had achieved what can convincingly be argued to be the peak of the kart racer template and has since dominated over the last few decades. Mario Kart 8 always had phenomenally strong mechanics and track design – its biggest shortcoming was always content and modes.

By the time Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was wrapping up, it had more content than any other game in the genre, while having those top notch mechanics that, even a decade later, are unmatched. So where do you go from there? How do you top that?

"Grand Prix now has you race to your next track after the completion of the previous one, and then directly joins into the next race"

According to Nintendo, you don’t, and that’s why they have chosen to go in a completely different direction. Rather than simply giving us a new Mario Kart game in the same format and template as the old ones, just with a new set of tracks, Mario Kart World is… different. It doesn’t even attempt to take on the challenge of topping the legacy of its predecessor, instead attempting to forge its own identity.

This is evident across nearly every facet of the game – there’s that much vaunted interconnected open world that every track in the game is set in, and which can be explored in a completely free form free roam mode. There’s the new Knockout Tour mode, which essentially turns Mario Kart into a battle royale meets cross country rally, which sees players race from track to track ins sequence, with the players coming in below a certain rank getting eliminated each time.

Even the returning modes have changed – Grand Prix now has you race to your next track after the completion of the previous one, and then directly joins into the next race; meanwhile, Battle Mode is now timed. And even the way things play out on the track (and in the world) are different, with Mario Kart World embracing physics governed interactions and collisions, and adding rail grinding and wall running, and all the ways they open up track design and interactions… and yeah, it’s a lot. It’s still fundamentally a kart racer, because that’s what it is, but within the framework of that genre, it’s as much a reinvention as it is possible for it to be.

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"The game is vibrant, lively, colourful, and full of an abundance of personality."

A lot of its big bets are tied directly to the eponymous “world” – now every single track takes place within the same interconnected world, meaning every single track is now a “real” place within the world. Mario Kart 8 has hinted at a much larger world beyond the tracks that we are limited to, providing only tantalizing glimpses at best. Now, we get to see all of it, and it’s great. The bump to immersion, atmosphere, and sense of place that the contextualization of these tracks as real places within the world can provide is excellent.

I don’t want to get into too many, because a big part of it is the delight of the surprise at realizing how a track fits into the world as you play, but seeing fan favorite GameCube track Dino Dino Jungle reimagined as a Jurassic Park style theme park, or finding Wario’s Shipyard reimagined as a sunken galleon in the middle of a stormy sea really contributes to how compelling these tracks can feel.

It also helps that Mario Kart World is a beautiful game with excellent presentation, much like Mario Kart 8 was. The game is vibrant, lively, colourful, and full of an abundance of personality. The animations and character interactions are highly stylized now, lending the proceedings an incredible sense of tangible charm. As impressive as the tracks can look, however, they wouldn’t particularly hold up to scrutiny if the track design itself was lacking. The last few Mario Kart games – DS, Wii, 7, and 8 – all had incredible, excellent track design, to the extent that the bulk of their tracks have since appeared in subsequent games. 

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"It also helps that Mario Kart World is a beautiful game with excellent presentation, much like Mario Kart 8 was."

World has a lot to live up to in that regard, and it largely succeeds. While I am not yet sure any track achieves the highs that the best tracks of Mario Kart 8 did, barring maybe one or two, they are all still excellent, and easily in the same tier of quality as the other four games I just mentioned. A lot of this is because of the additions of rail grinding and wall jumping, as well as all the possibilities for chaining tricks and boosts that they afford. Every track seems to be designed with multiple layers and levels, with a lot of shortcuts to spice things up further. The theming of the tracks is also top notch (which, of course, further contributes to, and gains from, the contextualization of these tracks in the world), and allows the developers to allow for some truly unique and fresh takes on a Mario Kart track.

But apart from the bespoke flagship tracks that you will actually be racing on, there are also roads and routes that connect all of them together. This is significant not just for the free roam mode, which we’ll get to in a bit, but in actual races. In a Grand Prix, for example, once you finish a race, the next race is not simply you racing on the next track – instead, the next race is you starting from the last track, making your way to the next track, racing everyone else along the way, while also weaving through traffic, pedestrians, and other similar hazards, with the final part of the race then being a lap around the next track. 

This can be a divisive change – there’s an argument to be made that reducing the time spent racing on the actual crafted tracks to just one lap, with the rest of the races being on the in between roads, detracts from what the genre has traditionally been strong at, and it’s a reasonable stance to take. On the other hand, I find myself greatly enjoying this new structure – because the open world is persistent, the in between parts are almost never the same, with weather, traffic, and other such conditions changing constantly and allowing for a level of dynamic emergent gameplay. And while I understand the desire for the classic Grand Prix format, the good thing is the game does still allow that – a custom cup, complete with points tracking, can be set up in the Versus Mode, which doesn’t have the in-between segments, and just has you race around tracks for three laps one after the other. 

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"Every mode in the game benefits from how fantastically well the game controls."

Where the in between segments really come to life is the Knockout Tour mode. This essentially has you race across different parts of the map, going through multiple tracks in quick succession, and the parts in between. After every segment of this one mega race is completed, a portion of players who came in under a threshold are eliminated, until the pool gets smaller and smaller.

This mode is extremely fun, extremely tense, and extremely chaotic, amplifying not just the party game side of the Mario Kart equation with the emergent chaos that it allows for, but also simultaneously rewarding the skilled or competitive player by truly rewarding those who can shave off seconds off their completion times, whether it be through judicious use of items, track memorization and knowing where the shortcuts are, or simply being able to chain together drifts and tricks to get your own boosts as and when you need them.

It’s incredibly fun – arguably it’s the most fun mode of the entire game, with every single thing Mario Kart World goes for – the track design, the tracks being placed in the world, the physics based interactions, the open world itself – all coming together and working in unison to great effect.

Every mode in the game benefits from how fantastically well the game controls. The incredibly precise, responsive, and tight game feel, which allowed an astonishing degree of micro control to skilled players, while remaining instantly accessible to everyone else, has returned, but it’s been expanded and amplified. Drifting, while of course still important, has been de-emphasized as the central mechanic now, with the game balancing that out by sprinkling loads of possibilities for players to chain together their own boosts as and when they need them – from traffic and hazards that can provide a boost to all sorts of possibilities for chaining together a lot of tricks, in the guise of the rail grinding and wall jumping.

mario kart world

"Of course, for players who want the ability to enjoy driving around without worrying about losing or other players, there is the Free Roam mode, which is exactly what it says on the tin."

The item balance appears to be remarkably restrained as well, in spite of the increased player count – 24 players per race now, up from 12 in Mario Kart Wii and 8, and 8 players in all other games. Every item also has enough viable counters, be they in the form of other items, or the track design, or skilled players pulling off tricks that let them avoid inconvenient items launched at them.

Of course, for players who want the ability to enjoy driving around without worrying about losing or other players, there is the Free Roam mode, which is exactly what it says on the tin. At any point, you can pull up the map, select a point on it, and start driving around freely in any direction. The barriers and guardrails that limit your movement during races are all gone now, and you can truly explore the world. It’s at this point that it becomes evident how well designed the world is – it’s extremely layered, allowing for a lot of opportunities for players to have fun while driving, satisfying to explore, and has a lot of things to find.

This is the sort of mode that’s likely to be especially popular with younger and more casual audiences – it’s extremely chill, with a total lack of structure, just letting you drive wherever you like with no pressure, and emphasizing a lot of the kind of emergent gameplay and interactions that World is good at, and giving the exact kinds of rewards that will compel exploration – whether those be new costume unlocks for your favorite characters, or new stickers to customize your kart with. This isn’t to say that more engaged players can’t enjoy it – I really came around to liking it, and I’ve spent hours just going around in the world simply because of how chill, meditative, and compelling it can be.

mario kart world

"Yes, there are missions in Mario Kart World’s open world."

What can be its greatest shortcoming, however, is that aforementioned lack of structure, because I do mean there is a total lack of structure. There’s no story, no campaign, no objective markers, no cutscenes, no tutorials, not even introductory dialog framing things for you. You literally just get put in the world and start driving around.

This can be off putting and positively disappointing, particularly after how other racing games over the years, such as the Forza Horizon games, have used their open worlds to allow for substantial single player campaigns in addition to their traditional arcade racing gameplay. It can feel meandering and pointless to a fault.

Certainly, at least at first, I was struggling to wrap my head around how to engage with it. Eventually it does click – as I said, it’s a sandbox, and you’re supposed to go exploring yourself, driven by your own curiosity. Once you do, it turns out the world does have things in it – in addition to finding and unlocking costumes and stickers as mentioned previously, there are also collectibles all across the map, hidden ? block panels, and perhaps most importantly for those looking for structure and objectives, missions.

Yes, there are missions in Mario Kart World’s open world. They are completely uncontextualized, but by finding P-Switches dotted all around the map, you unlock missions for yourself – these can be anything from races to time trial challenges, to challenges that make you use specific tricks or techniques, ones that make you avoid obstacles, ones that make you run into obstacles, and a whole lot more. Generally speaking, these are bite-sized.

That said, there’s a dizzying number of them to find – at least over a hundred, and there might be more. Suffice it to say, you’re not going to lack things to do in the world. But the very unstructured and free form way that you find and engage with it may certainly come as a disappointment to you, and I can’t hold that against you if it does.

mario kart world

"Whether or not Mario Kart World is better than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a question that will be answered in due time."

One thing that is likely to endear the free roam mode to a lot of long time fans of Mario Kart 8, is also what is one of the game’s greatest strengths – its soundtrack. Most of these tracks can only be heard in the free roam mode, where they play seemingly randomly as you explore.

Honestly, this soundtrack is an absolute vibe – simply going around driving through the world looking for P-Switches, weaving through traffic, chaining tricks together, enjoying the weather while a soundtrack plays can be extremely compelling – it also helps that the actual mechanics and world design are as strong as they are, of course. But the music really pulls its weight, and then some. What a soundtrack this is.

Mario Kart World is an extremely ambitious game, and it seems to have made it a personal challenge to rethink practically every aspect. Not all of these bets work out – the Free Roam mode in particular is likely to be divisive among those who expected more structure, and while I imagine the Grand Prix and Battle Mode changes will be largely well-received, there will certainly be some who are disappointed. But almost everything else – from the new mechanics to the new tracks, from the excellent graphics to the amazing soundtrack, from the Knockout Tour mode to the more physics driven emergent style of gameplay – is a home run.

Whether or not Mario Kart World is better than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a question that will be answered in due time – for now, we can at least say that, in attempting to avoid having to answer that question, Nintendo have turned out an extremely high quality, polished, and fun package that almost anyone can enjoy in Mario Kart World.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch 2.


THE GOOD

Interconnected open world with dynamic weather and hazards, Knockout Tour mode is innovative, Beautiful visuals with excellent animation, Physics-driven gameplay, Huge mission variety and collectibles across the map.

THE BAD

Weak UI design, Divisive free roam structure, Grand Prix races may feel unsatisfying.

Final Verdict:
AMAZING
Mario Kart World redefines what a kart racer can be, blending freedom with innovative race mechanics and unforgettable charm. While its unstructured approach won’t click with everyone, it’s an impressive, polished, and endlessly fun new direction for the genre.
A copy of this game was purchased by author for review purposes. Click here to know more about our Reviews Policy.

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