Mario Kart World - 14 New Details Nintendo Just Revealed

Nintendo has published a multi-part "Ask the Developer" blog post for Mario Kart World, offering a lot of new details and insights into what's expected to be the Switch 2's most popular game.

Five Nintendo developers shared interesting insights and behind-the-scenes details about the game, including the origin of the fan-favorite cow and why the company opted against calling the game Mario Kart 9.

In this gallery, we're highlighting some of the key takeaways from the "Ask the Developer" post.

Mario Kart World is a launch title for the Switch 2, arriving alongside the console on June 5. It's Nintendo's first $80 game, but you can buy a Switch 2 bundle with a copy of the game for $500, which represents a discount over buying the system and the game separately. That is, if you're able to get one--systems are currently sold out.

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Producer Kosuke Yabuki said Nintendo was plotting out the next Mario Kart game even before Mario Kart 8 Deluxe came out. Prototyping for what would become Mario Kart World began in March 2017, which was the same month that the original Switch arrived.

Kabuki said Nintendo had nailed the formula of racing on individual courses and wanted to change things up with a more ambitious open-world approach for the next game.

"It was at the end of that year when we officially started work on it as a project. I felt that in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we were able to perfect the formula that we'd been following in the series up to that point, where players race on individual courses," Yabuki said. "That's why, this time, we wanted the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began creating a world map like this."

Yabuki went on to say that if Nintendo's aim was to make a game that just had more courses, then it might have called it Mario Kart 9 instead of Mario Kart World.

"But, that wasn't our approach this time. We wanted to take the series to the next level. So, we decided to drop the numbering this time and go with a completely new title, Mario Kart World."

A game like Mario Kart World with an ambitious design setup of shifting the formula to open-world came with "troubles," Yabuki said.

"In previous Mario Kart games, after finishing a course, you'd move on to the next course. However, I thought that with modern technology, being able to seamlessly transition between courses and realize a single, vast world wasn't beyond the realm of possibility," he said. "So, with this in mind, we set out to create a new kind of Mario Kart....And that's when all our troubles began. (Laughs)"

Programming director Kenta Sato added that it was understood that making games set in "vast worlds" was incredibly difficult for other studios, so Nintendo was "feeling the pressure and wondering if we could really do that" with Mario Kart.

Sato said it would be "tough" to design a Mario Kart game with a big open world and to have it run at 60fps. "I was excited, but at the same time, I felt like it would be tough," Sato said.

Gameplay designer Shintaro Jikumaru said making a Mario Kart game with an interconnected world would be rewarding for the developers and the players alike, but it would be a challenge to avoid changing things too much.

"It can sometimes feel particularly disappointing when a sequel changes too many things. So, as someone involved in game development, I felt that our first challenge was to figure out how to add new elements while still making it satisfying for those who've played previous Mario Kartgames," Jikumaru said.

"We were careful not to change things that have been important to Mario Kart as a series purely because it's now set in an interconnected world," Yabuki added. "As before, we needed to keep the fun of casually playing with family and friends, but also have depth, where players can hone their skills against the online competition."

In terms of the character designs, art director Masaaki Ishikawa said the team wanted to change things up to give off a more "playful" look.

"The characters in the Super Marioseries have a rounded look, so we wanted to give the vehicles a rounded design too, to match their appearance. We also wanted to give the characters a livelier look even while they're in their vehicles, so we put everything together in a way that gives off a sense of playfulness through the combination of the characters' rounded designs, soft facial expressions, and rich movements," Ishikawa said.

Another big change for Mario Kart World is that races support up to 24 players on a course, the most ever for the series.

Yabuki said it was decided "fairly early on" that Mario Kart World would support up to 24 players.

"By creating long routes in a vast world, you could end up with players spread out in various places, which could diminish the sense that they're racing against each other," he said. "So, we figured that by increasing the number of racers, you'd be sure to see some competitive action here and there. Maybe that's a bit simplistic. (Laughs)"

Sato added that Nintendo's programmers first had to determine if supporting 24 players was even possible. "In game development, you first finish making all the different elements and then optimize them to run on the system. But when trying to accommodate 24 players, we had to make all kinds of processing optimizations right from the start as we were making it," Sato explained.

Sato went on to say that working with the original Switch was "difficult" in some ways because the console's power didn't allow the developers to incorporate "everything we wanted."

"We were always conscious of what we were giving up in return. We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30fps in some cases. It was a tough situation," Sato said.

Yabuki mentioned that Nintendo's developers worked on these problems while "kicking the can down the road" in terms of deciding what to prioritize in development of Mario Kart World.

It was at this time that the Mario Kart team decided to release the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe because it would "give us a bit more time" to continue working on the challenges with Mario Kart World.

"That's when the conversation of moving it to the Nintendo Switch 2 system came up, and this suddenly opened up a bunch of possibilities on what we could do. It was truly a ray of hope," Yabuki said.

Sato said in 2020, Nintendo already had an idea about what the Switch 2's specs would be, and this reinvigorated the team. Realizing the team's ambition for Mario Kart World on the OG Switch might not have been possible, but the Switch 2 opened new doors.

"When we were developing for Nintendo Switch, we often worried whether we could find the right balance between planning and performance. Of course, the Switch system's performance is sufficient for developing different kinds of games, but if we had included everything we wanted to in this game's vast world, then it wouldn't have run at 60 fps and would have suffered from constant framerate drops," Sato said.

"I think there were a lot of people on the team who were worried about whether we could really manage it. But once we decided to release this game on Switch 2, we expected our worries to evaporate all at once. I remember being overjoyed when I discovered we could express even more than we'd originally set out to."

With Mario Kart World being an open-world title with interconnected courses, Jikumaru said it was "pretty tricky" to find a way to make things fit together "without losing what makes [individual courses] special."

Ishikawa added, "Each course was built around its own unique and distinctive concept, so if the landscape between the courses was barren, then it would feel like the world was just divided into chunks. That's why it's important to establish a context that connects them in a way that feels natural while making use of contrast to create surprises."

"We wanted players to experience being in the next area before they knew it, so we had to work out where to put impactful changes in scenery like landmarks so that we could realize that while still making it seamless."

Mario Kart World features time and weather changes, and Jikumaru said Nintendo questioned whether or not these features would even be possible to implement. Ishikawa, meanwhile, said the "sheer volume of work" made the team consider abandoning the idea.

"We were under no illusion. (Laughs) We were even on the verge of giving up on it at one point," Ishikawa said.

However, the team was committed to the idea of time and weather changes, and it's ultimately in the game.

"It was even worse than we imagined. (Laughs) But the graphics programmers were also determined to create something good and worked ambitiously to make it happen, rallying support from various people," Ishikawa said.

Sato mentioned that the "volume of content" needed for this was worrying to the programming team.

"The programmers were also worried about how they were going to work together to handle this volume of content. We knew what we wanted to do, but the big challenge was working out how we could actually complete it. That said, we thought it might be possible if we could change our development approach in a way that reduces the workload," the developer said.

Mario Kart World features individual courses that players can complete again and again, but the racing is not limited to the courses themselves.

"The areas between courses are also used for racing. So it's as if there are courses spread out all over the world, and if you were to add up all the possible variations, it would easily exceed 100," Yabuki said.

In an unexpected twist, Mario Kart World allows players to stop in at roadside restaurants to grab a bite to eat. This idea came up early in development, but it wasn't until two years later that Nintendo decided to commit to it, Jikumaru said. It wasn't always a sure thing, though, as the developer said, "We did consider removing the food feature at one point."

"Unable to let it go, I asked the programmers to implement a hamburger model I'd created and make it so that the characters could eat it," he said. "It was well received within the team, and the designer started to churn out different kinds of food. Before we knew it, the number of variations had exploded."

Eating food in Mario Kart World doesn't provide new abilities, but allows players to unlock new cosmetics inspired by the region where the food is from. And yes, the cow can eat burgers and steak.

When Mario Kart World was announced, people immediately gravitated toward one of the new characters--the cow.

But how did the cow come to be? Yabuki said the cow is known in Mario Kart lore, as the creature is featured in Moo Moo Meadows in the scenery and as an obstacle to avoid. But when Nintendo was working on an early version of a new course set on a ranch, the team produced a sketch of a cow in a tractor that led to the cow's ultimate inclusion as a playable character.

"Each new Mario Kart game features new characters to race with, but since we added so many to the previous game, we wondered where we could go from there," Ishikawa said. "And then one of the designers came up with that silly sketch of Cow cruising along, and I thought to myself, 'This is it!' (Laughs) So that's when we realized the course surroundings actually contained a lot of untapped resources."

"The character designer quickly put together a prototype of Cow that could race, and surprisingly it didn't feel out of place at all. So we thought maybe we could include other obstacle characters, and decided to add Cheep Cheep and Pokey as racers. As a result, the idea of taking obstacle characters, usually found in courses in past games, and having them participate in races made sense to me in terms of an interconnected world."

Yabuki went on to say what we're all thinking: "It's pretty funny to see a four-legged Cow holding onto motorcycle handlebars with her front hooves."

In Mario Kart World, players can drive vehicles that let them cruise on top of water. Sato said this required a good amount of time and investment into "wave graphics."

"Not just how they look. Our up-and-coming programmers also implemented simulations, such as ripples spreading when something drops in the water, or waves appearing after a vehicle passes through," Sato said. "They made it possible to create waves on demand. This game has enemy characters that create waves when they attack, so we were able to incorporate players jumping on those waves into the gameplay."

Players can use the wave crests to jump a little higher, and this required more time and effort from the team than some might think.

"If you want an exhilarating jump on a wave, you need to be able to see the crest of the wave to gauge the timing of your jump," Jikumaru said. "But with regular wave visuals, it's hard to tell where the crest of the wave is. That's why I asked for white foam, or whitecaps, to be added to the crests. I was like, 'Hmm, I don't see any whitecaps on the waves...' Then the programmers would say, 'How about now, Jikumaru-san?' And I'd be like, 'I still can't see it! Just a little more!' We went back and forth like this for a while before the job was done. The programmers really worked hard. Thanks to that, I think jumping on waves has turned into a nice little gameplay element."

Mario Kart World features a big, interconnected open world for players to explore, but with such freedom came a worry from the team that players might get lost.

Ishikawa said the team made a conscious effort to make courses that are "comfortable and satisfying to play," with visual cues for where to go next baked directly into the overall map.

"We sprinkled the terrain with what our team has been calling 'landmarks,' such as mushroom-shaped mountains," the developer said. "These are designed to be easily recognizable and intriguing, so that players' eyes are naturally pulled toward their destination. We could just have used arrows to point players in the right direction, but that would have just made the world feel cramped. We felt it was important for players to be able to sense which direction they should be heading while racing so that they'd think to themselves, 'Looks like a right turn is coming up.'"

For certain courses, players will see varied terrain that lets them know which way to go.

"Sometimes we needed to clearly indicate the route, for example, 'This is a crossroad, but in this race, you turn right,' to ensure players wouldn't get lost. In such cases, we made efforts to vary up the terrain, such as by placing what we call 'banked parts' to guide players, so they intuitively understand which way to go," the developer explained.

Ishikawa said he began work on Mario Kart World wondering, "Can we really make all of this?"!

It was a legitimate concern, but Ishikawa said the difficulty of the job was rewarding in the end. "Looking back on it, this huge challenge allowed us to have fun creating lots of different things with close attention to detail," he said.

"In previous Mario Kart games, the courses were separate and could only be viewed one by one. But now they look different depending on the angle, time of day, and mode you're playing. We've packed a lot of details into them."