Today’s Mario Kart World Direct revealed much more information about the upcoming title, and it looks like a great blend of familiar fun with a whole lot of new gameplay elements. From the Free Roam feature that lets you explore the entirety of the world to a slew of new tricks that include grinding on rails, Mario Kart World looks like the refresh the series needed.
Let’s start with the courses. There are numerous courses scattered throughout the map, each one thematically influenced by its surrounding geography. The Direct demoed the Mario Bros. Circuit, Crown City, the canal-focused Salty Salty Speedway, snowy Starview Peak, Boo Cinema, Toad’s Factory, Peach Beach, Wario Shipyard, and more. Classic courses make a comeback, but with a few tweaks to the tracks you know and love.
In addition to the expected characters like Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, and Peach, there are loads of newcomers like Goomba, Spike, and Cow (my personal favorite.) Each character and vehicle has its own stats, so combining them can result in wildly different performance. That said, the Direct still didn’t answer whether there would be individual vehicle customization.
The familiar Grand Prix Mode is back, putting players through a series of four races, but there’s a new twist: you have to drive yourself between locations. That means that when one segment of the Grand Prix ends, you’ll still need to hurry along to the next portion. Knockout Tour is another new gameplay mode that works like an elimination round; everyone starts out together, but if you don’t place high enough in each race, you lose.
Don’t worry, though: a host of new items make it easier to gain an edge on your opponents, including the Coin Shell for picking up extra dough when you need it, the Ice Flower for freezing your opponents in place, and the Hammer for throwing obstacles in front of your opponents. The Feather is another new addition that lets you jump over incoming attacks, but it can also be used to access hidden routes to gain an edge.
And on that front, new tricks like wall riding make it possible to navigate vertically up walls. Grind along a rail, leap off it, and move up a wall; you might find shortcuts you didn’t know existed.
The courses themselves are littered with obstacles, like cars that shoot Bullet Bills or Hammer Bro audience members that throw hammers at passing racers.
Mario Kart World also introduces Yoshi’s, a drive-through restaurant where you can permanently unlock new character outfits depending on the meal. The Direct also showed P Switches that unlocked missions and much more. I suspect it’s just one of many things for players to unlock in the free roam mode to extend the replayability of the game.
However, the most surprising addition is the Rewind function. It works just like it sounds: if you mess up during a race, you can rewind your character back to a certain point, but your opponents will continue moving forward normally. It’s a gamble — is the shortcut with the sacrifice of losing your position?
Mario Kart World releases on June 5 alongside the Nintendo Switch 2, and if today’s Direct was anything to go by, it looks like a fantastic launch title that will keep players entertained for a long time to come.
