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Mario Kart World repeats Mario Kart 8's most annoying problem as Nintendo's seemingly hiding all-important stats for characters and vehicles

News
By Kaan Serin published 12 June 2025

Don't trust Nintendo to tell you how fast you're really going

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Mario Kart World screenshot featuring Birdo
(Image credit: Nintendo)
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Don't trust Nintendo to tell you how fast your loadout really is in Mario Kart World because, just like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the game seems to be hiding all sorts of stats.

In Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart World, the game displays some basic information about your character and your karts' stats shortly before a race - speed, acceleration, weight, and handling included. Bigger characters, like Bowser, usually hit higher maximum speeds than the smaller names on the roster, like the babies.

But anyone knee deep in the Mario Kart 8 meta knows the game's basic stats don't paint the full picture. The game secretly hides stats about how fast your character/kart combo goes in water, on land, in the air, and even how effective turbo boosts are - and Mario Kart World is seemingly just as secretive.

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If Mario Kart World's stat screen is to be believed at face value, then Waluigi and Wario should move just as fast as each other when driving in the same vehicle. They are in the same weight class, after all, right? Wrong!

HIDDEN STATS Are Better Than We Thought in Mario Kart World... - YouTube HIDDEN STATS Are Better Than We Thought in Mario Kart World... - YouTube
Watch On

YouTuber svcTyler recently conducted some early testing on the subject and found that certain character/kart combinations are actually faster than others, despite the game promising they have exactly the same stats. What's even more unusual is that different characters seem to go faster depending on the very terrain they're driving on - Wario seems to be the fastest on normal tracks, while Cow has a slight advantage on muddier dirt roads, for example.

Content creator Austin John Plays also found that all is not as it seems, though we still need to wait until more extensive community testing comes through to know what's really going on (unless Nintendo just tells us, but what are the chances of that happening?) since Game8 didn't find anything fishy in its early testing.

For now, check out how to find all P-Switch locations in Mario Kart World and all Mario Kart World outfits.

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Kaan Serin
Kaan Serin
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Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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