Mario Kart World - Review (Switch 2)

Apparently, the blue shell is officially called the spiny shell. Who knew.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is here, and Mario Kart World is the flagship game for the new system, being the only big exclusive title available at launch.

There’s been a fair bit of discussion around whether or not a Mario Kart game is a good choice for a system launch title, and whether or not they should have picked Donkey Kong Bananza, seeing as how that is a big new entry in a somewhat dormant franchise. However in my opinion, I think it works perfectly as a launch title, because it’s pretty synonymous with the console itself.

As I described in my initial impressions of the Switch 2, the console is an evolution of the original, rather than a revolution. It’s fitting then that the first game released for the system is much of the same, an evolution of the previous title rather than a revolution.

Mario Kart World offers several modes of play. First, you have the standard cups, race through a few tracks and if you manage to grab enough points by the end, you’ll come out at first place. In addition it has a battle mode, a free roam mode, and a knockout cup.

The knockout cup is perhaps my favourite new addition to the series, as it works very well with the game Nintendo have built. Tracks in Mario Kart World are built in such a way that they connect to other tracks as part of a bigger world map. In knockout mode, you race through these tracks in a linear fashion, going from the starting point to the ending point seamlessly.

Every time you reach a new track, some of the lowest ranking racers are eliminated. Mario Kart World now supports 24 racers, so this creates some really exciting races where you have to constantly try and avoid the elimination bracket. In Mario Kart fashion, a well timed spiny shell can knock you back a load of places, so staying up at the front is never guaranteed. It’s a genuinely exciting and fun way to play.

As for the tracks themselves, I really like them. They are perhaps a little more grounded than in previous series, due to the connected nature of the world. There are less abstract tracks here, but what we do have is as inventive as ever. You have tracks where you’re bouncing across giant leaves, battling through waves, over deserts buffeted by sandstorms. The tracks have a sense of dynamism to them that makes them feel more alive, and with the 24 races, often very hectic.

The first thing I did when I started playing this game, was play in two player mode with my partner. I only planned to play a level or two to get a feel for the game, but we ended up playing all evening, going through every track. Luckily, the Switch 2 supports Switch 1 joy-cons, so all we had to do was pair those up and we were on our way. We had a lot of fun playing through each course. Mario Kart at it’s heart is a couch multiplayer game - that is always where the series has been best, and it’s good to see that still works as it always has, and is just as fun.

The biggest new addition this time around is the free roam mode, and I personally think Nintendo have done themselves a bit of a disservice in the way they’ve advertised it. When you jump into free roam, you can drive around the world map and complete challenges, collect stickers and new costumes. The challenges can often be quite fun - examples include avoiding giant snowballs down a big hill, driving across tight ledges, you get the picture.

And whilst I think it’s a fun addition, it isn’t really the focus of the game and I don’t think it was ever intended to be. The marketing of the game makes this seem like it’s core mode and it really isn’t. Mario Kart World isn’t an open world racing game in the veins of Forza Horizon, it’s a Mario Kart game with an extra mode. This is to say that whilst the free roam has some fun stuff to do, it is ultimately a bit empty and not really worthy of being the core focus. I almost think it is only here to help justify the connected nature of all the tracks.

There’s a very large cast of characters here this time, and many of them have lots of additional costumes to unlock. I like to play as Waluigi, and my favourite costume I’ve found so far is the Wampire costume. You unlock these by picking up bags of fast food, which randomly unlock a new costume for that character. Strangely, each characters costume is presented as a separate character on the select screen, which means when you’ve unlocked quite a few the pages of the selection screen are seemingly endless.

In addition, you unlock new characters by completing courses, and new vehicles by collecting lots of coins. It’s something of a breath of fresh air in 2025 to actually unlock stuff through gameplay the old fashioned way, I’m really happy they kept that in. There are loads of characters too, even Cheep Cheep the fish makes an appearance.

There have been a few changes to the core gameplay. You can no longer customise your vehicle by selecting different wheels and gliders, but to be honest I don’t think this is much of a loss. There’s a couple of new items, but largely the selection of weapons will remain familiar. What does feel different though is how the karts handle. They seem to bounce around a bit more from wheel to wheel, react to the scenery and the bumps in the road more, it all just feels more dynamic.

They’ve added a grinding feature too, on rails and certain other objects you can grind along, which helps makes these longer and more open tracks feel more interactable. Overall, this is a really great Mario Kart game. If you play it as a Mario Kart game and treat the free roam mode as just an optional feature - you’ll get a lot of fun out of it. It’s still one of the best multiplayer games you can buy, so I suggest if you’re looking for local games to play with others on your Switch 2, this is a must buy. However if you go into it expecting an open world racing game, you will be disappointed.

Rating - 4/5