For over a decade, Mario Kart has been a franchise preserved in amber, its 2014 formula so durable that Nintendo saw little reason to disturb it. With Mario Kart World on the Switch 2, the company finally chose disturbance over comfort — doubling the field of racers, opening the world between courses, and asking what the series might become if it stopped being merely what it already was. The answer is uneven, as genuine experiments tend to be, but the willingness to experiment at all marks a meaningful turn in how Nintendo stewards its most reliable franchises.
Mario Kart World review: Innovation struggles amid 24-racer chaos
Skill matters less. Luck matters more.
Mark
So the big change here is 24 racers instead of 12. That sounds like it should be exciting. Why does it feel like a problem?
Mimi
Because more racers means more items in the air at the same time. In Mario Kart, items are how the game creates chaos and comebacks. But there's a threshold where chaos stops being fun and starts being noise. You can be in first place, hit a straightaway, and get sniped by a red shell you never saw coming. It happens more often now.
Luke
But that's always been true of Mario Kart, right? The series has always had this rubber-band AI and item-based randomness. Is this actually worse, or does it just feel worse because there are more visual effects on screen?
Mimi
It's genuinely worse in terms of frequency. The source material is clear: doubling the racers practically doubles the items. That's not perception. That's math.
Mark
What about the Free Roam mode? That sounds like the thing that actually works.
Mimi
It does. It's the one place where the game breaks from the old formula and it pays off. You're not on a set circuit. You're in an open space with other racers, and you decide how to navigate it. It's a mode that couldn't have existed in the old Mario Kart structure.
Luke
But how much of the game is Free Roam versus traditional racing? The review doesn't say. If it's a small portion, then the core experience is still the chaotic 24-racer mess.
Mimi
That's fair. The review focuses on what works and what doesn't, but it doesn't break down the time you'd actually spend in each mode.
Mark
So the big question is: did Nintendo need to double the racers to make this game feel new?
Luke
Or did they do it because the Switch 2 could handle it, and then had to figure out how to make it work? Those are different things.
Le Pouls
- A franchise that had been quietly calcifying since 2014 suddenly finds itself asked to grow — and the pressure to justify a new console makes retreat impossible.
- Doubling the racer count to 24 floods the track with projectiles and chaos, tipping the game's delicate balance away from skill and toward the mercy of random item drops.
- The new Free Roam mode cuts against every constraint the series has historically imposed, offering open exploration where circuits once enforced a single path forward.
- Nintendo is threading a difficult needle: the spectacle of 24 bodies on screen is undeniable, but the gameplay consequences make some races feel more like weather events than competitions.
- The game lands in an unresolved but promising place — more ambitious than a port, less polished than a masterpiece, and more honest about the franchise's need for reinvention than anything Nintendo has released in years.
For over a decade, Mario Kart has been a franchise preserved in amber, its 2014 formula so durable that Nintendo saw little reason to disturb it. With Mario Kart World on the Switch 2, the company finally chose disturbance over comfort — doubling the field of racers, opening the world between courses, and asking what the series might become if it stopped being merely what it already was. The answer is uneven, as genuine experiments tend to be, but the willingness to experiment at all marks a meaningful turn in how Nintendo stewards its most reliable franchises.
Nintendo had every reason to play it safe. Mario Kart 8, released in 2014, was so foundational that the company simply ported it to the Switch and spent years adding DLC rather than building something new. The formula had become almost archaeological — tight courses, power-sliding, item boxes, shortcuts. Nothing wrong with leaving it alone.
Mario Kart World doesn't leave it alone. The game keeps the familiar skeleton and builds outward in ways the series hasn't attempted before, with new modes, new driving techniques, and a deliberate focus on the vast stretches of land between the race courses themselves. The result is uneven, but it reads as something the franchise genuinely needed.
The first shock is the density of bodies on track. Doubling the field to 24 racers — up from 12 in Mario Kart 8 — is partly a flex, a demonstration of Switch 2's processing power, and partly an excuse to pull from the deeper corners of the Mario universe. As spectacle, the crowded grid works. As gameplay, it creates a problem. Double the racers means double the items circulating at any moment, and the chaos tips the balance: skill matters less, luck matters more. Long straightaways become exercises in hoping nothing hits you.
The Free Roam mode is where the game finds its footing. Turned loose on a large open space with other racers, you navigate however you want — chasing opponents, hunting shortcuts, exploring. It's a mode that wouldn't have made sense in the old Mario Kart structure, but here it works, and it's where the game feels least constrained by its own traditions.
What Mario Kart World ultimately signals is that Nintendo is willing to evolve this franchise rather than just refresh it. Some risks land cleanly, others less so. Whether all of it coheres is still an open question — but the willingness to ask the question at all feels like progress.
Nintendo had every reason to play it safe with Mario Kart World. The franchise has been coasting on a formula that calcified around 2014's Wii U release of Mario Kart 8—a game so foundational that the company simply ported it to Switch and then spent years layering on character and track DLC rather than building something genuinely new. The bones of a Mario Kart game had become almost archaeological: tight courses, power-sliding mechanics, item boxes, shortcuts. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong, either, with leaving it alone.
But Mario Kart World doesn't leave it alone. The game keeps the skeleton—the twisty tracks, the item-fueled chaos, the power-sliding rhythm—and builds outward in ways the series hasn't attempted before. There are new modes. There are new driving techniques. And there is a deliberate focus on what used to be empty space: the vast stretches of land between the intricately designed race courses themselves. The result feels uneven at times, but it also reads as something the franchise genuinely needed—a transfusion of new ideas into a series that had begun to feel static.
The first shock when you load a race is the sheer density of bodies on the track. Mario Kart World doubles the field to 24 racers per course, up from the 12 that populated Mario Kart 8 and the eight that were standard in earlier games. It's a flex, really—a way to demonstrate what the Switch 2's processing power can handle. It also gives Nintendo an excuse to expand the character roster dramatically, pulling from the deeper corners of the Mario universe. If you've been waiting for Sidestepper to get his moment, this is the game.
From a pure spectacle standpoint, that crowded grid works. From a gameplay standpoint, it creates a problem. Double the racers and you double the number of items circulating through the race at any given moment. Question-mark boxes appear more frequently in the pack's path, and when they do, the air fills with projectiles. Red shells come from behind. Mega Mushrooms turn other drivers into oversized obstacles. Hammer Bros. rain down strikes. Any of these can crater your position in seconds, sending you from competitive to lapped in a single unlucky stretch of track. The chaos isn't new to Mario Kart—it's baked into the DNA—but the scale of it here tips the balance. Skill matters less. Luck matters more. The straightaways, especially the long ones, become exercises in hoping nothing hits you rather than exercises in racing.
The Free Roam mode, though, is where the game finds its footing. This is the new idea that justifies the whole project. Instead of following a predetermined circuit, you're turned loose on a large, open space with other racers, and you navigate it however you want. You can chase down specific opponents. You can hunt for shortcuts. You can explore. It's a mode that wouldn't have made sense in the old Mario Kart structure, but it makes sense here, and it works. It's where the game feels least constrained by its own traditions.
What Mario Kart World signals, ultimately, is that Nintendo is willing to actually evolve this franchise rather than just refresh it. The company could have made Mario Kart 8.5 and called it a day. Instead, it took risks—some of which land cleanly, others less so. The 24-racer chaos is a trade-off: more spectacle, less control. The new modes and techniques suggest a game trying to find new angles on a very old idea. Whether all of it coheres is still an open question. But the willingness to ask the question at all feels like progress.
Citations marquantes
The expansion to 24 racers serves as a good way to show off the added processing power of the Switch 2, but from a gameplay perspective, it might add just a bit too much chaos to an already chaotic racing experience.— Ars Technica review
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