Mario Kart World review: Hitting the road in style

Nintendo fans are notoriously insatiable—I should know, I am one. After 11 years with the most robust Mario Kart ever made, we’re still craving more: more tracks, more characters, and more chaotic fun, whether it’s late-night races with friends or early morning warm-ups before work. Now, with the arrival of the Switch 2, it’s only natural we’re eager to see how Mario Kart can evolve with it.

Enter Mario Kart World—the next big installment that delivers exactly what fans have been asking for, and then some. Sure, we get the usual influx of tracks, characters, and karts, but the headline feature is Free Roam: an open-world mode that connects everything together and redefines how we experience Mario Kart. While it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it lays down exciting new tracks for the series’ future.

It’s All Connected

After years of Mario Kart 8, the series’ formula is practically muscle memory. World sticks closely to that core, but enhances it with a slick 60 fps performance and visual upgrades that add depth to both characters and environments.

Classic modes like Grand Prix, Time Trial, and Battle return—but with a twist. Grand Prix now feels like a cross-country journey, with each race linked by drivable highways and side roads. After finishing a course, you're no longer just tossed into the next one—you're driving there, dodging traffic and minor hazards along the way. It’s a clever change that makes the world feel larger, more alive, and connected.

These in-between segments are mostly straight shots, lacking the flair of the courses they lead to. Still, they’re well-designed, giving a sense of continuity as you spot course-specific elements—like ice cream cones near Sky High Sundae or zebras by Faraway Oasis—hinting at what's ahead.

Once you reach a main course, the transition is seamless—but the races themselves are shorter. Sometimes it's just a single lap, and without a clear starting gate, you might not even notice where the track officially begins unless you catch the music cue. It’s disappointing if it’s your first time on a course, but the shorter races make sense given the added travel time between them.

Despite the abbreviated races, Grand Prix still delivers. The mix of road segments and quick-hit tracks captures the thrill of discovery and reinforces the game’s connected world. And if you want to savor a full three-lap course, you can always replay it outside the Grand Prix mode.

Racing to Win

Knockout Tour takes the new formula a step further. This mode pits players against elimination-style checkpoints across six linked courses. You only race small portions of each track, but the challenge lies in staying alive—and that adrenaline rush is where the fun is. It's intense, sometimes frustrating, but incredibly rewarding when you pull off a clutch win.

Even in trimmed-down form, the new tracks shine. With 30 at launch, there’s a strong mix of inventive originals and creatively remixed classics. New tracks like Boo Cinema will make you smile as you drive into an interactive spooky movie, while others might not hit the same mark. Even Moo Moo Meadows—in its third iteration—offers subtle changes that make it feel different. Picking favorites will be subjective—but Rainbow Road is objectively brilliant. With a breathtaking design and an emotional, all-new theme song, it might be the best version yet. I dare you not to feel a sheer sense of awe the first time you drive through it.

New to World is the ability to grind on rails and even drive on walls after completing tricks akin to skateboarding. Pulling this off gives you a boost of speed, but finding that perfect spot and knowing when to do this takes practice, but it opens up clever shortcuts and elevates the racing experience. Water also feels very differently here in that you’ll be racing on top of it instead of going in it like you could in previous titles. Combined with these new trick mechanics, these water sections turn your kart into a jet ski where diving into the water and performing a flip as you reach the surface never gets old.

A World to Discover

World introduces Free Roam mode—an expansive, interconnected overworld made up of themed biomes you can explore at will. It’s not an open-world racer like Forza Horizon, but it’s a surprisingly cohesive sandbox that ties everything together. Roads transition logically between regions, with visual storytelling built into the environment—from construction zones to vibrant towns dotted with Toads and KoopaTroopas.

The world feels a bit underpopulated, but it compensates with scale and detail. Unlike past entries where Lakitu quickly zaps you back on track, here you're encouraged to veer off and poke around. It reminded me of playing Mario Kart 64 and exploring the Peach’s Castle in Royale Raceway. There was nothing there, but this time—there are plenty of clever details to find.

Scattered across the map are P Blocks that trigger timed challenges and races, Peach coins in hard-to-reach places, and question mark panels to uncover. These mini-objectives reward you with stickers and can eventually unlock Mirror Mode, acting as light diversions between races. They're not game-changing, but they make the world worth exploring.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to properly track your collectibles. The map will just tell you how many panels you’ve uncovered in each course, but locating all the P Blocks will mean driving around to find them yourself—even if they’ve already been cleared. If you’re a completionist, this will quickly become frustrating unless you have a photographic memory or use a guide as help. A map or checklist would have gone a long way in making this mode feel more rewarding instead of tedious.

Costumes, Collectibles, and Customization

Exploration isn’t just for stickers—visiting places like Yoshi’s Diners can net you unique food items that unlock alternate costumes for characters like Mario, Peach, and Bowser. Each costume gives the character a unique personality and is a great touch at letting you customize your racing experience. Giving each Yoshi color its own adorable costume was a genius idea. Oh, and Oasis Wario in a sultan outfit? Instant favorite.

While karts can’t be customized piece by piece anymore, you can still unlock dozens of new vehicles, each with different stats. As for new characters, many are unlocked through RNG mechanics involving Kamek's transformation item. Getting hit by it might unlock Dolphin, Dry Bones, or Peepa—but only if the AI cooperates and hits you with it. And once unlocked, these characters don’t have the same customization depth as the main roster, which feels like a missed opportunity. We could have had Goombario, but instead we just have a plain old Goomba to pick.

A Soundtrack That Hits Every Note

The soundtrack in World is absolutely massive, rivaling the sheer scope and variety of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s legendary music library. Featuring remixes from past Mario Kart games and deep cuts from other Nintendo titles, it’s a love letter to the company’s musical history. A jazzy Mario Galaxy theme, a ska take on the Super Mario Bros. 3’s Athletic tune, and a soulful SNES Vanilla Lake remix—each track is playful, nostalgic, and fits the vibe perfectly.

These songs play during Free Roam and travel segments, adding to the road trip atmosphere. A customizable radio feature would’ve been ideal, especially given how strong the soundtrack is, but as it stands, it's still one of the game’s highlights.

Online Highs and Lows

Online play runs smoothly—even in handheld mode—and with up to 23 others, the chaos is beautifully familiar. While items aren’t balanced in the best way Mario Kart items can be, you’ll still have those moments when you’re driving confidently in first place until a blue shell comes along to ruin your day.

The biggest online downside is limited control over what tracks you play. Matchmaking typically offers three “tour” courses and one random pick, which means you're often just driving toward a course, and only playing a snippet of the actual track. Rarely you’ll get an actual three-lap course to choose from so if you want a more traditional online race, you’ll have to keep picking random or hope this is one of your possible choices. Again, it’s not to say the road leading to the course isn’t exciting, but always having the option to pick a three-lap course would have been a better compromise.

Also disappointing: Knockout Tour can’t be played with online friends unless you fill all 24 slots. If there are only two of you, the rest will be computers. Free Roam multiplayer also acts as a waiting room until the next course starts and you can’t really explore the entire world with someone by your side. You can’t do P Block challenges together either, though you can help each other collect items if you manage to get them before the next race begins.

Final Thoughts

Mario Kart World isn’t a radical departure—it’s the same joyful kart-racing chaos we love, now with a fresh coat of paint and an open-world framework tying everything together. Free Roam doesn’t reinvent the series nor is it as complex as it seemed at first, but it offers a welcome breather and a new way to appreciate the world Mario and friends race through.

Its open world essentially serves as the foundation on which the game is built and shows off how interconnected everything is. This makes the game feel bigger than it actually is. The roads leading to each course act like tracks in their right even though they aren’t always winners, but the thrill of evading a red shell is still there because the bones of the series are still as strong as ever.

Mario Kart World launches the Switch 2 era with style and ambition. With future updates likely on the horizon, World is already a celebration of everything that makes the series great—and a promising look at where it’s headed next.