After helping Nintendo with Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Xenoblade devs brought their open-world expertise to Mario Kart World as well

Nintendo once again called on its in-house open world specialists to help with Mario Kart World.

Long-time Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft announced as much in a new social media post celebrating the Nintendo Switch 2 launch game, where it explained the team helped to "develop the fields and character designs" for the new racer.

As the name suggests, Mario Kart World is a kart racer set within a single, giant, interconnected map that lets you free roam outside of the confines of a traditional MK track. So who better to call than the people who got Xenoblade Chronicles to actually run on a Wii, of all things, or made Xenoblade Chronicles X's mech-riddled world look so darn good on a Wii U?

This isn't Monolith Soft's first support rodeo, either. Nintendo previously got the studio to help push out its first-ever in-house open-world game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and its sequel Tears of the Kingdom, which are still some of the most impressive titles on the handheld-hybrid. It makes sense to get the studio to work on Mario's first open-world game as well, then.

Monolith's also chipped in on everything from Pikmin 3 and Animal Crossing to the Splatoon series. The studio's last solo work was this year's Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in 2022, so we should (hopefully) be seeing a new upcoming Switch 2 game from the team at some point soon.

Still wondering if you should even pick up the new console. Check out our Nintendo Switch 2 review in progress or find out where to buy a Switch 2.

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