Mario Kart World Nintendo Switch 2 Impressions: The first true evolution of the party racer

Nintendo Switch's best-selling series had to deliver a launch game for the Nintendo Switch 2, even if it meant pushing a new 3D Mario further down the line. Its importance is such that it had a whole floor dedicated to it today at the Switch 2 Premiere event in Paris. You couldn't skip it, you could leave after a first try to go test all the other games on a separate floor, and then you could come back to try out the new Knockout Tour mode. But you know what? If it wasn't a work gig, I could have very well spent my 3+ hours playing Mario Kart World.

Let me start off with the differences, some big, some quite nuanced, but all very interesting for fans. It is after all quite the evolution, given the focus on larger, wider tracks, the different ways you deal with them (and in-between), or the new mechanics to play with considering the additional items, moves, and elements.

Controller, or console in hand, the game feels a bit heavier, with drifts even dragging you to risky two-wheel driving and with rivals decelerating or stopping you more than before. The whole track transforms much more too, not just because of the changing weather conditions (don't expect certain wheels to, for example, make a difference on snow or gravel) and many more hazards or moving elements, from Hammer Bros. to boost arcs that lift all of a sudden to leave you un-boosted.

Karts now opt for a more realistic all-terrain approach regardless of their type, if realistic is the word we should use for a Mario Kart preview. For example, there are no more anti-gravity nor underwater sections, you now float and hover on water, in a beautiful nod to Wave Race and its physics, if you ask me. Gone is the paraglider too, as karts, quads, and bikes now deploy a couple of fancy, mech-like wings. And speaking of moves, I loved the grinding possibilities, wondering why they were never there in the first place: just try to land on fences, handrails, train tracks and the like for additional speed and wall-jumping possibilities.

And how do you land on them? If you didn't come from a previous ramp or leap, you can use the Feather, as one of the returning items. I also saw the Hammer item, the Ice Flower to freeze rivals, or a Golden Shell that improves your economy, now that you can save up to 20 coins for maximum speed, double the previous figure. There're also different types of food beyond mushrooms giving you a boost... and at the same time changing your clothes, as now customisation has also been expanded for characters.

Speaking about characters, as there are 24 on-track at maximum, they let you drive with pretty much everybody from the Mushroom Kingdom, including baddies or even formerly figurative creatures. I loved Toad Burger Toad, Aero Pauline, and of course Mariachi Waluigi, not to mention the now-famous Moo-Moo Cow, the Goomba, or the Dolphin, which I guess doesn't change outfit upon eating food...

Our demos were locked to 100 cc class, meaning I missed some higher-speed shenanigans, and yet it was quite frantic and chaotic in all the modes, like you would expect, but multiplied by player count. The demo also unveiled new aids — instead of MK8's auto pilot or steering assist, which I'm sure will return, I noticed how protective items auto-shielded your vehicle from the rear without having to hold ZL, and the same goes to performing tricks on ramps and bumps, as they were automatically triggered.

All that is good and feels even better, with crispy, smooth, colourful 4K graphics on TV (removing a rendering graphical glitch I noticed on the train tracks at some draw distance) or honestly amazing results in the non-OLED screen, which takes good advantage of the added size and brightness. And of course expect another leap when it comes to funny animations, tons of little details such as snow covering drivers, and many nods and references.

But where Mario Kart World becomes a game changer for the series is in the whole game structure and the different ways to approach it. We drove some sprints from A to B between track locations to then complete a number of laps on the circuit proper in a Grand Prix. Those tracks are, again, wider and way more ambitious, housing more activity and life. The retro Donkey Kong arcade tribute or the heavily revamped Mario Kart Wii classic completely got me.

You also get rolling starts where you just push it to the metal at "2" in the countdown as usual, which adds to the overall "active", always rolling, always competing approach, and where this all goes literally nuts is with the brand-new Knockout Tour mode. You could think of it as a Battle Royale or survival mode, and Nintendo couldn't have showcased it better than today, given how they had arranged the demo event. We were 24 players, 24 humans in the same room, feeling the tension and the absolutely, deliciously unfairness of the series upped to eleven. Every checkpoint kicks the last X players out, and as you know with Mario Kart, you can go from 1st to 24th and vice-versa within a minute. I think this mode is gonna knock it out of the park and that the tracks are actually more ready for it than for regular, less hectic races, but we'll see about fun and balance.

Mario Kart World means a new world of gameplay possibilities and hilarious situations, and that, more so than more beautiful graphics or the more modern online features, made it the very best experience of the event, and one can understand why it's been chosen as Nintendo Switch 2's system seller.