Mario Kart World, a premium Nintendo Switch 2 launch title, has been surrounded by a lot of chaos. It has been in development since the creation of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the original Switch console, but the development team felt that the concept behind Mario Kart World couldn’t be fully realized on the original Switch console.
In a recent “Ask the Developer” series by Nintendo, they revealed that Mario Kart World was originally planned for the original Switch during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but the team felt that the console wouldn’t be capable of handling the game’s scope and ideas.
Question: So, the various courses are interconnected. Could you tell us how development for this game got started?
Yabuki: We were thinking about what to do for the next Mario Kart game even during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and we began prototyping in March 2017. It was at the end of that year when we officially started work on it as a project. I felt that in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we were able to perfect the formula that we’d been following in the series up to that point, where players race on individual courses. That’s why, this time, we wanted the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began creating a world map like this.
Obviously, there’s going to be a lot more in this new title compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Yabuki mentioned a few key details in the “Ask the Developer” series: Mario Kart World will be set in a large, interconnected world, and just like the traditional races on tracks that consist of three laps, players will also race on roads connecting the tracks. There will also be Knockout Tour Races. In addition, there will be time shifts and season changes, allowing players to experience day and night, as well as weather changes like snow and rain.
Another important feature that could completely change the gaming experience is Free Roam. Players will be able to freely drive and explore the entire world.
