Best of Mario Kart World (Part 1)

All of these clips from my Mario Kart World stream with my friends are actually pretty cursed. So it's not really the "best of," it's the "most cursed" of Mario Kart World. About Mario Kart World (per Wikipedia): Mario Kart World is a 2025 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch 2. As in previous Mario Kart games, players control Mario characters as they race against opponents. World introduces an open-world design and mode, off-roading techniques, an elimination mode, and unlockable costumes for the playable characters. Races support up to 24 players, twice as many as previous Mario Kart games. Mario Kart World entered development in 2017 for Nintendo Switch, shortly before the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and shifted to the Switch 2 in 2020 due to hardware limitations. The title Mario Kart World was chosen over Mario Kart 9 to signify a "new approach". The soundtrack, composed by a team led by Atsuko Asahi, features over 200 tracks, including rearrangements of themes from across the Mario franchise. Nintendo announced Mario Kart World in April 2025. It was released on June 5, 2025, as a launch game for the Switch 2. It received generally positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay and refinement of the series formula, but criticism for certain design choices. Gameplay See also: Gameplay of Mario Kart Mario Kart World is a kart racing game. As in previous Mario Kart games, players race as characters from the Mario series in one of many selectable go-karts. The game features 50 playable characters; 24 of the playable characters have alternate unlockable costumes accessed by eating snacks during races, while most of the remaining characters additionally exist as obstacles on the game's tracks. It supports up to 24 players, twice as many compared to previous Mario Kart games, and includes features such as an open-world design, a free-roaming mode, off-roading segments, boat racing, rail grinding and wall jumping. Unlike prior Mario Kart games, the Grand Prix mode does not consist of four separate races; rather, racers must drive to each course. Outside of Grand Prix, it is possible to race on tracks for three laps like in previous Mario Kart games. Mario Kart World features some past courses from the series that have been reimagined to fit the game's open world design and to include a shift from day to night. In addition, a mode called Knockout Tour is introduced in the game; the 24 racers compete in one much longer race spanning the game's world, with four eliminations at each of the six intermittent checkpoints. Battle Mode returns from previous games; players compete against one another to pop each other's balloons in Balloon Battle or collecting the most coins in Coin Runners. "Mirror Mode", which horizontally inverts the entire map, also returns from the previous games. Another new mode called "Free Roam" is introduced in World; players are permitted to drive to any location, including those that are off-road or outside of race tracks. Numerous missions, such as finding collectibles, are present in this mode. In addition, players can also take photos of their chosen driver. Rebekah Valentine, writing for IGN, noted the mode's likeness to Forza Horizon (2012), an open world racing game. Development Nintendo began prototyping Mario Kart World for the Nintendo Switch in March 2017, just before the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. At the end of that year, Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development officially began development on the game. Kosuke Yabuki, series producer, wanted the new entry to innovate on the series' gameplay formula with an open world, as he thought the traditional gameplay formula had been perfected with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The game was titled Mario Kart World instead of Mario Kart 9 since early stages of development; the developers intended for it to be a completely new approach. Most of the new playable characters also exist as obstacles on the game's tracks; according to art director Masaaki Ishikawa, one of the designers made a sketch of a Cow from the Moo Moo Meadows track driving a truck, leading to many of the course's other obstacles becoming NPC drivers. In 2020, development was moved to the Nintendo Switch 2 after problems arose when trying to optimize an open-world racing game with 24 players on the original Switch hardware. The Switch 2's hardware specifications were beginning to take shape and gave the developers room to expand on their ideas. The "Booster Course Pass" downloadable content for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was also conceived around this time, as a stopgap release to allow development on World to be prolonged.