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Mario Kart World

April 18: We’re only a few weeks away from the launch of Switch 2, and Nintendo is preparing for the big event with the first Japanese commercials.

Two clips have been published. In the first one, the hardware gets the focus and Nintendo shows off its various features such as GameChat and mouse support. For the other one, it’s entirely for Mario Kart World, which will be out alongside the new system.

Mario Kart World unrevealed secrets

Ever since its official reveal at the big Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, Mario Kart World has been met with a mostly positive reception. That’s regarding the game itself, by the way – not so much the $80 price tag. With all that said, some players are wondering if Mario Kart World has hidden characters or tracks that weren’t revealed in any of the pre-release material. While we don’t exactly believe that’s the case, we’re absolutely open to being proved wrong. The more content, the better! Here’s why we think Nintendo has shown most of Mario Kart World’s content (hypothetical updates and DLC aside).

Mario Kart World concept art

Coming from today’s Mario Kart World interview, Nintendo has shared concept art for the game and has spoken about including NPC drivers.

The roster has some unconventional picks, including Cow – who has quickly become a fan favorite. Cow is actually a part of a group that Nintendo labels “NPC drivers”. 

Nintendo’s Kosuke Yabuki, Masaaki Ishikawa, and Kenta Sato shared in the interview:

Mario Kart World was originally planned as a game for the current Switch, Nintendo has revealed.

That piece of information comes from an official interview that went live today. The team was finding it a challenge to incorporate everything it wanted to do, including ramping up from 12 racers to 24 players. Programmer Kenta Sato said various sacrifices were considered, including “toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 FPS in some cases.” However, the move to Nintendo Switch 2 allowed for everything to be kept intact.

In a new interview issued today, Nintendo commented on why Mario Kart World isn’t called Mario Kart 9.

Before the game was unveiled, there was plenty of speculation about what the name would be. Many thought that it would be Mario Kart 9 as that makes sense to follow up on Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe. On the other hand, some fans also argued that Nintendo could skip to Mario Kart 10, given that we saw Mario Kart Tour in 2019. It turned out that the company went in a different direction, and that’s where we ended up with Mario Kart World.

Nintendo has spoken about the origins of Mario Kart World, revealing that the project started developing in 2017.

According to producer Kosuke Yabuki, the team first began prototyping in March 2017 following the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Nintendo Switch. Production then moved forward officially by the end of that year.

When Nintendo Switch 2 launches in just a few weeks, Mario Kart World will be there right alongside it. Nintendo has now spoken about the decision to tie the two together.

In a recent interview, Nintendo’s senior vice president of product development Nate Bihldorff spoke about how Mario Kart World is “one of the most broadly accessible games possible.” Also, anyone can easily get into the game, but it also has a high skill ceiling – meaning it’s very appealing to both hardcore and casual players.

Despite some fans believing in the possibility that Mario Kart World could feature AI-generated images, Nintendo has said otherwise.

The company provided a brief statement today that should – hopefully – clear up the situation. Nintendo simply said: “AI-generated images were not used in the development of Mario Kart World.”

Nintendo Switch 2 offers plenty of power and has new features like mouse controls and GameChat, but it’s building off the foundations of its predecessor. Partially because of that, some have the belief that it’s not much of an innovation.

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa responded to that claim during a financial results briefing Q&A this week. The big takeaway is that developers have needed “higher hardware processing power in order to realize one of Nintendo’s most important values, ‘proposing new ways to play.'” Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza were cited as two examples “that could not be realized on the Nintendo Switch.” Mario Kart World features an open world with more racers on the track than ever before while Donkey Kong Bananza contains destructible environments. 

Mario Kart World unconfirmed veterans

With the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World fast approaching, it feels like we know a great deal about the new console and its upcoming launch title. However, what we’re most interested in is what we don’t know. Has Nintendo revealed the full roster for the game? Or are there a bunch of unlockable characters that won’t be acknowledged until release day? Whichever winds up being the case, we’re here today to look at all the unconfirmed veterans for Mario Kart World. We’ll also be ranking each one based on how likely they are to return.


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