Nintendo Confirms New Details About Mario Kart World’s Interconnected Map

Summary

Mario Kart World features an open-world design, allowing for exciting off-roading adventures.
The game’s producer, Kosuke Yabuki, confirmed Mario Kart World is not set in the canon Mushroom Kingdom but still has familiar details.
The producer also noted that the launch title’s course design is “quite a bit more work” compared to previous titles.

Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki has provided more details on the upcoming racer’s world and interconnected map, noting considerable differences from the past setting. Following previous entries in Nintendo’s popular kart racing series, Mario Kart World will allow players to compete against opponents racing as their favorite Super Mario characters, and for the first time in the franchise, World will feature an open-world design with room for some exciting off-roading adventures.

Now that gamers are mere days away from the racer’s launch, Mario Kart World’s release date and times have been announced. Fans who opt to purchase software digitally will gain access to the content one day prior to the physical release, and since the racer is a launch title, the game will only be available to play on the Nintendo Switch 2, not the original Switch console.

nintendo might add larger engine sizes to mario kart world in the future

Mario Kart World Won’t Have One Previous Feature At Launch, But There Is Hope

Unfortunately for some players, Mario Kart World won’t have one previous feature at launch, though hopes are not completely shattered.

During an interview with The Verge, Yabuki discussed the game’s non-linear courses, joining Mario Kart World’s new binocular stations feature, which will give players a better look at the game’s Free Roam sections. In contrast to previous courses, where players drove and looked in “very few fixed directions,” the Mario Kart World team had to conceptualize the various entry and exit points players would take, and how these paths would work to the racer’s advantage. The producer also noted the launch title’s course design took “quite a bit more work” compared to previous titles, saying, “We knew when we came up with this idea that it really would be a big change for the series, but we had no idea at the time how many people, how much time, and how much effort that would require to actually achieve it.”

Mario Kart World’s Interconnect Map Is Not the Canon Mushroom Kingdom

Mushroom Kingdom sprang to life in the animated Super Mario Bros. Movie, but fans of the franchise should not expect Mario Kart World to exist in the same world. Yabuki confirmed Mario Kart World is not set in the canon version of the Mushroom Kingdom, but there will be plenty of details to make fans feel at home. “As you travel through this world, you will see things that remind you of the Mushroom Kingdom,” Yabuki reassured, noting that question mark blocks and warp pipes will still be present. Furthermore, the producer stated that the scale of mountains and deserts, for example, was specifically designed to fit into Mario Kart World’s sprawling setting.

Before the Switch 2 cascades onto shelves, Nintendo made a surprising change to Mario Kart World just days before launch. The Japanese developer has reduced the game’s file size, taking into account that the successor console has 256 GB of internal storage with space for 2 TB of expandable memory, but a specific reason for the game compression has yet to be addressed directly.