Mario Kart World’s Updates Should Take a Page Out of Smash Bros. Book

After over a decade of Mario Kart 8, there are fresh new races for players to experience with Mario Kart World. The new entry into the famous kart racer series makes a number of changes to what fans have come to expect from Mario Kart, marking a bold new start for both the racing franchise and the new Switch 2 console itself – and its lifespan is likely far from over.

Nintendo has a track record of keeping its bigger first-party releases alive with post-launch updates and DLC, which should help keep Mario Kart World as a thriving title on the Switch 2 for a while yet. While nothing has been entirely confirmed, MKW‘s producer has suggested adding 200cc in a future update. If this kind of addition is in the cards, then Mario Kart World will surely look into adding other features, and hopefully one will be a thing Super Smash Bros. has made great use of for a while now: rules for item selection.

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Mario Kart World Could Benefit By Introducing Item Selection Rules From Super Smash Bros.

Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. have held a strong reputation as chaotic games to play with friends since the days of the Nintendo 64. Despite Super Smash Bros.’ nature as a fighting franchise, it sits alongside Mario Kart on players’ shelves as another game that’s worth picking up if they want fun that can turn into disaster all because of a poorly timed blue shell or home-run bat.

In order to help fans stay on top of items in games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, special rules menus allow players to pick and choose which items they want or just turn them all off for a clean, competitive match. This also gives the players who are looking for something fun and unpredictable the chance to create a fight with Poke Balls, Curry, or Bunny Hoods, if they feel like it. In Mario Kart World, there are a few new items as well as some classics that certainly hold potential to be toggled the same way.

Right now, Mario Kart World players don’t have a way to even turn items off to begin with. The only options fans have can be found in the VS Race mode, which are just “Normal” and “Frantic.” The Frantic setting in particular is getting a lot of use with fans thanks to how Kamek unlocks NPC racers, but only if players get lucky and turn into the specific NPC they want during a race. Kamek is a rather rare item to get during races on top of the odds regarding the NPCs themselves, which makes for a great argument for item toggles.

There’s plenty of potential in Mario Kart races using specific items only as well. Using only green shells to cover the track in items that ricoche around each of the players sounds like a fun Mario Kart-themed Russian Roulette game, for example. Mushrooms only could lead to some intense races, and coin shells could prove to be a great test of speed and careful dodging. There’s an argument to be made that blue shells might not work well without other items to balance them, but that’s no reason not to pursue the concept.

Of course, these options would be best in VS Races, a mode designed to allow players to pick the rules they want. If online matches allow for specific items to be used in the future, then the rule changes should be displayed before a race begins so that players know what they’re getting into. Just like Super Smash Bros., as long as everyone’s in for the chaos item selection in Mario Kart World could provide, it could result in plenty of hilarious memories while helping cushion the Kamek unlock grind.