Three months after the launch of Mario Kart World, it’s fair to say that the game’s open world is the weakest part of the experience. Despite being incredibly well-designed with dozens of variations of tracks that all link into one another, and hundreds of bite-sized challenges known as P-Switches, driving around the Mushroom Kingdom lacked variety after dozens of hours of play. Making matters worse was the inability to track how many P-Switches a player has completed.
Mario Kart World finally addresses this issue (among others) in its latest free update. And while it won’t solve all the problems I have with the game’s main single-player offering, it’s at least an overdue step in the right direction.
With update 1.3.0, Mario Kart World’s map finally shows which P-Switches you’ve beaten and which Peach Medallions you’ve found. Adding this critical information to the world map means players will no longer have to drive around aimlessly, hoping to stumble onto one of the 400-plus challenges to make progress. Now, players can simply fast travel to or cruise through an area that hasn’t been filled in by checkmarks, narrowing their hunt considerably.
The new update brings an obvious quality of life improvement that, in all honesty, should have been added ages ago. Open world racing games have been around since the mid-2000s, and all of them have included simple ways of tracking a player’s progress. Not having this most essential feature out of the box, let alone an open world full of varied content, impromptu races, and more interesting secrets to uncover, made the latest Mario Kart feel woefully outdated in the single-player department.
The drastically improved map isn’t the only smart change. Before the recent update, unlocking certain characters required being hit by an opponent's Kamek power-up and transforming into them. This was a random event out of the player’s control, and required grinding races in hopes of getting hit by the right item at the right time.
Mercifully, players can now unlock these characters by entering a UFO spaceship and abducting the characters they haven’t yet unlocked as they roam the world. See a Coin Coffer or Spike you don’t have yet? Simply fly over them to add them to the character select screen.
Lastly, Nintendo is increasing the frequency of three-lap races showing up in multiplayer lobbies. This addresses the biggest issue plaguing Mario Kart World’s online community, as racing through the long straightaways that transition players from one course to another is largely uninteresting. Despite being unpopular, Nintendo seemed adamant on making these in-between parts of the map a standard part of multiplayer matches instead of providing a more traditional Mario Kart racing experience. It seems it’s finally listened to fans.
All of these improvements are welcome ones, though they do highlight some of the more glaring flaws of the Switch 2’s biggest launch title. Its titular feature ended up being a half-baked addition that didn’t properly realize its potential. Its new trick mechanics didn’t amount to much more than opening up shortcut potential. And the increased 24-player races only made races more random and frustrating. It’s still a fantastic game worth adding to one’s Switch 2 collection. But if it wasn’t for World’s excellent Knockout Tour mode and huge cast of playable characters, I’m positive I would have gone back to the perfection of Mario Kart 8 by now.
What’s most interesting is that these improvements are hitting the same week that Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is releasing. Sonic’s latest racing game is reviewing very well, providing Nintendo’s franchise with some much-needed competition. Sega has even gone as far as poking fun at some of Mario Kart World’s shortcomings in its promotional material.
While I don’t think these long-awaited features are being added because of Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, it’s certainly good to see someone contesting the most dominant racing game on the planet and keeping them on their toes. It’s even cooler to see Mario and Sonic renew their rivalry from the '90s (and the Olympics) in 2025.
