How Mario Kart World Turns a Classic Feature into a Cardinal Sin

Alongside wall-riding and open-world maps, Mario Kart World has a subtle feature that changes the game in ways most players didn’t ask for. The developers have quietly slipped in an update to the AI system that seems to have made the game much more difficult than its previous entries. Multiple Mario Kart players, in this case, have taken to online forums to complain that they’re having a harder time winning the more they play.

This isn’t because of new tracks or players still getting used to the Switch 2 controls. The real reason is Mario Kart World’s newly introduced adaptable AI system, which observes player input and adjusts its behavior accordingly. It watches how players take corners, how often they chain items, how clean their laps are, and then dials itself up to match. This creates a loop where the more the players try to master the game, the less margin of advantage they retain.

Mario Kart World Players May Be Making the Game Harder and Not Even Realizing It

Some Mario Kart World players could be doing something that makes the game harder without knowing that they are sabotaging themselves.

Drifting Makes Mario Kart World Significantly Tougher

In earlier games, skilled drifting rewarded players with turbo boosts and smoother laps, but Mario Kart World turns it into a cardinal sin. So, if a player consistently executes drifts in Mario Kart World, the AI racers begin to mirror this perfectly. Drifting makes the AI think the player is a veteran, and it instantly ditches its training wheels and goes full-on racing god mode. The computer racers begin drifting, chaining items, using boosts in all the right spots, taking all the shortcuts, and hugging corners like they’ve memorized time trial lines, all the while timing them with insane accuracy.

Adaptive AI isn’t completely new to the franchise. The older Mario Kart games had rubberbanding, where the slower opponents would artificially speed up to catch up to the player. But that was just a speed boost that was predictable and manageable if the players raced skilfully. This time, the AI isn’t just catching up; it’s straight-up copying the players’ techniques and pulling them off with mechanical perfection. Plus, it makes zero errors, and there is no natural decay or variance in the play style. For instance, there is no risk of over-drifting or clipping corners like a human player would.

Other Games Have Tried Adaptive AI, But Never to This Extent

Forza Motorsport experimented with the Drivatar learning mechanic, where the AI learned from the player’s driving style over many sessions. But that worked on a macro level; it wasn’t reactive in the middle of a single race. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain also had enemies adapt. If players kept sneaking in at night, the enemies would start using more cameras and night vision goggles. But that too was set up so that players could figure out a counter and change their tactics. In Mario Kart World, simply drifting can trigger a massive AI skill jump where every CPU driver becomes a time trial record holder, and the player becomes the tutorial bot.

Why Does This Feature Make Mario Kart World Feel Unfair Instead of Competitive?

Instead of pushing harder, players are now afraid to experiment and show skill. One Reddit user, @austinkun, even pointed out they’re scared to try out the new grinding mechanics because they don’t want to face an unbeatable AI in Mario Kart World. This is obviously problematic, as players are not supposed to be afraid of playing well. The joy and fun of playing vanish when winning seems less about making good choices and more about whether the players intentionally played worse to fool the AI.

There’s a reason most games come with different difficulty levels. Players are supposed to master each one until they can eventually breeze through on the hardest difficulty. Mario Kart World pushes back against that feeling of improvement, though, as the moment the players drift, the opponents start racing in a precision-perfect, zero-mistake way that no human player could ever maintain. There is no off-switch for this adaptable AI, no difficulty slider; just a system that pushes players to race worse on purpose. And for a franchise that used to reward creativity and chaos, that feels like a betrayal of the karting spirit.