Mario Kart World review in progress: "Leaves it all out on the track and in between tracks too"

To put the Nintendo Switch 2 in pole position, Mario Kart World has the daunting requirement to not just be the best in the series to date, but the best karter ever. Mario Kart lacks any serious competition when it comes to the kart racing genre, barring some indie attempts and minor AAA shots over the years, and as such the only real measuring stick to progress or changes and expansion is its own self. But it's been a long time since a proper new Mario Kart has been released – with Mario Kart 8 initially releasing in 2014 on the Wii U – which makes it all the more difficult to answer what, exactly, makes a good Mario Kart? What makes a good kart racing game in general?

These are the questions I've struggled with while playing Mario Kart World. After an hour or so of existential dread and self-reflective navel-gazing, my conclusion is that a good kart racing game (and by extension, a good Mario Kart game) feels good in that races are hectic and slick with responsive controls. A good kart racing game is also never actually unfair, despite sometimes feeling like it is out to get you, with mechanics designed to keep you in the thick of things even if you've fallen behind.

By these metrics, what I've seen of Mario Kart World is certainly good. Zooming through the various tracks at 150cc is a colorful blast with plenty of shortcuts and surprises, and more than once I found myself managing a mad dash from 24th to 1st thanks to a combination of clutch items and clever handling. The core Mario Kart experience of goofy racing punctuated by diabolical shells of varying colors is alive and well.

Tour the world

Mario Kart World isn't purely content to sit on its laurels by simply repeating past successes. As the name implies there's a whole vast world out there to explore that the new Nintendo Switch 2 game takes every opportunity to enjoy. You can seemingly safely ignore the game's larger world in favor of just plain old racing if that's what you really want to do, but you'd be missing out.

In Grand Prix mode, for example, you can do the usual four-map race as a continuous course by traveling from one race to the next. Knockout Tour is a somewhat similar concept with one single long race featuring checkpoints where players are – you guessed it – knocked out if they don't place high enough. And then there's Free Roam, which, well, allows you to freely roam around Mario Kart World's vast map.

I have spent time drifting across all Mario Kart World has to offer – with a small amount of time spent in Battle Mode, Knockout Tour, and even a local co-op GameChat session with three players where the single camera superimposed three different live cropped images above our respective karts – but it is Free Roam that I keep finding myself cruising back to. In part, this is absolutely by design, as basically every single moment of downtime between races or while rules are being decided lets me wander about, but it's also because of just how tempting Free Roam is.

Free as a Birdo

It's hard to emphasize the sheer scope of Mario Kart World's, well, world to anyone that hasn't been able to experience it for themself. The sprawling race courses are stitched together with connective tissue that bridges them into related groups which are then also stitched together. The end result is a massive map you can kart around in, explore with pals, and discover ways to unlock a vast array of collectibles from stickers to outfits and more.

I am not typically one to spend much time searching out cosmetics – new karts and racers unlocked for me by simply racing – and yet I find myself absolutely compelled by Mario Kart World's P-Switch missions. The classic blue switch can be found all over the map during Free Roam, and activating them initiates a mission with various objectives. Maybe you have to dodge enemies, maybe it's following a series of rails, or maybe it's something else entirely, and what awaits you for completing these trials is a sticker for your efforts.

For most games, in my experience, these sorts of missions are typically only worthwhile if the reward is meaningful. And stickers, while appreciated, aren't really what I'd consider meaningful. Mario Kart World's P-Switch missions are fun and interesting specifically because they are otherwise largely brief, meaningless diversions in a big open world that dangles some kind of goal in front of the player through use of an important skill that transfers to traditional races.

For example, Mario Kart World lets players grind on rails and jump onto and off of walls. If you're not at least familiar with both, you're immediately at a disadvantage during races as your opponents will happily and regularly use anything to get ahead. More than one P-Switch mission I encounter is in some way a tutorial to get more accustomed to grinding, riding on walls, and sometimes both. With how brief they are, and how easy each is to restart, it's hard to ever get too frustrated with any of them despite the inevitable skill tests.

Any one of these major additions – Grand Prix, Knockout Tour, and Free Roam – would feel like a significant enough change to warrant a new franchise entry, and all three at once (on top of many, many other changes) makes for an almost overwhelming departure. At this point, despite two separate day-long preview events with a large amount of time focused on the new Nintendo Switch 2 game and now playing it at launch, I feel like I've still just only just scratched the surface of what Mario Kart World has to offer.

Be sure to check out our full list of Nintendo Switch 2 launch games to get the most out of the new console.