Mario Kart World's latest update has Nintendo saying you will play those intermission tracks and you will like them as picking 'Random' no longer guarantees a regular 3-lap race online

Mario Kart World screenshot featuring Toad
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Mario Kart World's intermission tracks are very love or hate within the racing game's community, with a ton of players selecting 'Random' while racing online to avoid them. However, a new patch from Nintendo has made it slightly more difficult to avoid intermission races.

Nintendo has released a new update for the Switch 2 launch game, and dropped the patch notes on its website. Among them are fixes to legitimate issues like "an issue where you continually hit the wall near the finish line of Boo Cinema when transformed into Bullet Bill," and "an issue where you sometimes can't recover quickly after falling off the course in Dino Dino Jungle."

However, those fixes aren't what have the fanbase in an uproar, as Nintendo also added a note that it "adjusted courses selected in 'Random' when selecting next course in a wireless VS Race."

Previously, you would be given a choice between three tracks that include intermission laps (although you'd occasionally get a non-intermission choice), and Random, which would then guarantee you a new track where you would skip the intermission and play a typical Mario Kart three-lap race. With this new update, the chances of you getting an intermission anyway have been upped.

It was initially claimed by one player that this update changed it so that you would now only get a random option from the three choices available. However, it turns out they just had extremely bad RNG as they quoted their post saying that you can, in fact, still get three-lap races from selecting Random, it's just that the three intermission tracks are also packed into the fold. It's unclear whether the three pre-selected tracks have a higher priority, otherwise this player would have had absolutely terrible luck.

It's also unclear why Nintendo has made this change, but given how many online lobbies were packed full of players only selecting random, it probably wants that to stop so that people actually play one of the main features in Mario Kart World – the intermissions. However, it'd be nice if Nintendo realised this is only happening because they want to play a full three-lap run of courses – as opposed to an extremely short lap of it after a straight road – and offered a solution.

Step aside, Cow: Mario Kart World's new fan-favorite racer is Spike, a goofy guy with a haunting stare and some fantastic speedy stats.

Scott McCrae
Contributor

Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

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