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Mario Kart World's new Rewind feature can be used in Time Trials to set wild records, like this 13-second lap

News
By Catherine Lewis published 11 June 2025

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Mario Kart World screenshot on Switch 2 showing King Boo on a bike
(Image credit: Nintendo)
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Mario Kart World hasn't even been out for a full week yet, but players have already found multiple ways to take advantage of its new mechanics for some wild shortcuts, including the new Rewind feature.

Rewind – an option that lets you quickly travel back in time to retrace your steps in the Switch 2 game – was quickly adopted by those racing against CPU racers to avoid things like blue shells and generally clown on their opponents. I'll be honest, I thought that's where the Rewind antics would end – after all, the feature can only be used in single-player, so you can't take the strategy online. However, it turns out it can also be used in the Time Trials mode, and one player has discovered that it can be used to complete laps incredibly quickly.

Highlighted by YouTube creator Jopes, it turns out that if you take to a course with a small enough track, like the bite-sized Koopa Troopa Beach, and then reverse backwards from the finish line, using the Rewind feature will take you all the way around the course and complete a lap for you, all while looking like you sped your game up.

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How I Broke Mario Kart World In Under A Day - YouTube How I Broke Mario Kart World In Under A Day - YouTube
Watch On

After some testing and optimizations, Jopes found that when reversing around a route for two laps, Rewind won't just complete a full lap for you when used, but also give you a significant head-start on the next one. After driving as close to the inner edge of the track as possible (off-road and cutting corners over grassy patches) Jopes was able to use this to then finish off a lap with a total time just short of 13 seconds – 12.856 seconds, to be exact – achieving what was a world record lap time for the track.

At the moment, it seems unlikely that you'd be able to do this to set a world record for the whole track – after all, driving backwards is slower, so the benefit can only really be applied to a single lap, like we see above. Still, who knows what speedrunners might be able to use it for going forward – we're already seeing some wild shortcuts as players bounce off palm trees and use the wall-riding tech to skip over corners, so we can definitely expect more strategies like this to come.

Intrepid Mario Kart World explorer spends 1 day mapping the "202 unique routes between tracks" in the new Switch 2 game: "If you raced on all of them, it would take over 10 hours"

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CATEGORIES
Nintendo Switch 2 Platforms Nintendo
Catherine Lewis
Catherine Lewis
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Deputy News Editor

I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

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