Mario Kart World's retro courses have been "reimagined," so don't expect your muscle memory to carry you through the Switch 2 racing game

Mario Kart World is racing onto Switch 2 very soon, and Nintendo has now confirmed that retro tracks will be "reimagined" for the new game.

Revealed in today's Mario Kart World Direct, we got a good look at a number of returning tracks, including Mario Kart Wii's Toad Factory, MK7's Wario Shipyard, and Double Dash's Peach Beach. At the same time, it was confirmed that these won't just be exact recreations of old favorites.

"Nostalgic courses from past titles are also here, but now, they're reimagined and spread throughout the world, where races can happen during the day or at night," it's explained.

Needless to say, any muscle memory you'd built up on those old tracks probably isn't going to be super useful here. To be fair, this isn't a totally new concept – Mario Kart 8 took a similar sort of approach with its retro tracks, adding functionality for things like its anti-gravity mechanic, and generally giving courses more than a new coat of paint.

It'll probably only be when the upcoming Switch 2 game is out that we can get a proper look at just how different the retro tracks are in World. For a start, we can probably expect the roads to be wider to accommodate the larger number of players who'll be competing for first place – 24 people is a lot, after all.

Elsewhere in the Direct, we got new glimpses and names of some of World's all-new tracks. These include Mario Bros. Circuit, Crown City, Salty Salty Speedway, Boo Cinema, and Starview Peak. In addition, Nintendo notes: "If you conquer all Grand Prix cups, rumor has it that a certain colorful course will appear." So, it sounds like that's how we'll be unlocking World's take on Rainbow Road.

Be sure to keep up with all the latest Nintendo Switch 2 news, including everything we know about Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders.