Mario Kart World hands-on preview – the Nintendo Switch 2’s best game
The first new Mario Kart game in over a decade also has one of the best open world environments ever but what’s it like to play with a dozen other people?
The first new Mario Kart game in over a decade also has one of the best open world environments ever but what’s it like to play with a dozen other people?
You’re probably wondering why we’re doing another preview of Mario Kart World (and Welcome Tour) just a few days before the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 but as has just been announced, Nintendo is not sending out review consoles or games until much closer to launch. We’ll still have a review in progress ready for you this week, but not a final, scored review.
You can read about the delay in detail in the article linked above but we don’t think Nintendo is purposefully trying to hide anything – this certainly doesn’t seem to be a Starfield situation. On the contrary, they’ve gone out of their way to host as many preview events as possible and after the one in April we got to spend even more time with Mario Kart World earlier this month.
It was a good four or five hours in total, giving us a chance to explore the open world environment on our own and play all the many different multiplayer modes, including making use of GameChat (or at least the camera functions of it). You’ll be unsurprised to know it was really good, although we were even more excited to find out we were quite good at it – even if we never won a Knockout match.
The success of Mario Kart (Mario Kart 8 has sold over 76 million copies, making it second only to GTA 5 in terms of traditional games) is built on its straightforward premise and instant accessibility. Naturally, that hasn’t changed for Mario Kart World, although until now we had been uncertain as to exactly how the normal Grand Prix mode and the open world integrate.
To be honest, we still have some questions – primarily in terms of the volume of ad hoc missions and secrets when free roaming – and that’s something we’re going to need a full review to answer.
What is becoming clear though is that the standard Grand Prix mode, and the new Knockout mode, are more separated from the open world than we initially thought. You select both from a menu, in the usual manner, and while they do take place within the open world – and you can visit the courses separately in free roam mode – during each race access roads are closed off and everything looks and acts like a normal, linear Mario Kart track.
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Previous Page Next PageMore or less, at least. Because there are now 24 racers at one time the roads tend to be much wider on many circuits and there’s an abundance of trackside detail, like barriers and electricity pylons, that you can hop onto and ride along, plus far more shortcuts than any of the previous games. In theory, this could lead to races being more formless and disjointed but we didn’t find this to be the case at all.
Unless you’re way out in front (only an occasional problem for us) there’s always plenty of other players nearby and there tends to be a lot of other road traffic as well. AI driven cars have been part of some specific tracks for years now but in World it’s commonplace, with not only ordinary civilian traffic but trucks with Hammer Bros. throwing hammers, Spikes chucking spikey logs, and many more. There’s even giant Goombas and Bullies hanging around in the middle of the road, waiting to chase after people, and all manner of other obstacles.
However, there isn’t always traffic, and the roads can get quite narrow at times, to the point where they feel just like a classic track (many of the courses are in fact remakes of existing ones, although in most cases the changes are significant and they’re barely recognisable).
Races in Mario Kart World are certainly more chaotic than previous games (the way you’re sometimes knocked onto just two wheels is great) with items flying everywhere, more complex level design (wall running works surprisingly well), and much more variety between laps (an influence from Mario Kart Tour, it seems).
We played split screen mode too but it was clearly 30fps and not 60fps (Nintendo)Despite that, any concern that the game is going to devolve into a random free-for-all seems unfounded. Playing single-player we consistently did well, always placing first in 50cc and doing exactly as well as we’d normally expect in the faster races.
Skill is still the primary factor in whether you win or lose and while the game will now automatically put items behind your kart as a shield, rather than that being a trick not everyone knows about, the boost drift is still a feature, and difficult to get right. There’s also a new jump boost, useful for getting onto grindable rails and other scenery, which is also hard to learn, as you can’t turn while it’s charging.
Playing against human players also went just as expected and we had no complaints that anything felt unfair or random. In fact, the wider roads actually make things like blue shells and Bullet Bills slightly easier to avoid, at least if you’re not the primary target. We’ve still not played enough to make any kind of final judgement but so far we have no significant concerns about the game’s integrity.
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