Nintendo’s Mario Kart World isn’t alone anymore. Instead, it’s being challenged by the newly released Sonic Racing Crossworlds, another legacy character-focused arcade racer published by Nintendo’s longtime rival, Sega. Before its release, Crossworlds sent a bit of a shot at the latest Mario Kart title last week, making fun of its free roam feature, which admittedly felt a bit half-baked at release. But it seems Nintendo took the criticism in stride and has released a new update to address some issues.
Update 1.3.0 for Mario Kart World also delivers a mix of quality-of-life improvements, online play adjustments, and bug fixes. The update makes it easier to join friends in Knockout Tour, expands Free Roam functionality, and tweaks items and race balance to create a smoother experience. Alongside these changes, a wide range of fixes address issues with ranking, item behavior, and course interactions, all aimed at tightening up gameplay both online and offline.
Mario Kart World Update 1.3.0 – Patch Notes
General
- You can now join friends playing “Knockout Tour” by selecting “Friends” from “Online Play” “1p.”
- Up to 2 players can now play “Free Roam” while waiting if the game was full when trying to join friends playing “Race,” “Knockout Tour” or “Battle” in “Online Play.”
- The “Free Roam” map now displays the locations of P Switches you’ve run over and Peach Medallions you’ve obtained.
- You can now select a P Switch from the map and move to a location near the P Switch.
- In “Free Roam”, you can now transform into the character pulled into the UFO.
- If “Dash Food” in “Settings/Controller” is set to “Doesn’t transform” then you will not transform.
- It is now easier to encounter UFOs in “Free Roam.”
- The conditions for the appearance of some Peach Medallions in “Free Roam” have been adjusted.
- When spectating in “Knockout Tour” or “Balloon Battle” in “Online Play” or “Wireless Play”, you can now choose who to watch, even if you are holding the Joy-Con 2 or Joy-Con horizontally.
- Decreased the time between when an item box is taken by someone and the next time it is revived.
- Increased the invincible time after spinning or crashing during a race.
- Reduced the force of jumps when landing on a rival from above.
- Decreased the amount of time between when you finish and when spectating begins in “Knockout Tour” or “Balloon Battle” in “Online Play” or “Wireless Play.”
- Decreased the amount of time between passing through the checkpoint and when the ranking is displayed in “Knockout Tour” in “Wireless Play” and “LAN Play.”
- Further increased the frequency of lap-type courses appearing in the selection when choosing the next course in “VS Race” and wireless races.
Fixed Issues
- Fixed an issue in “Online Play” and “Wireless Play” where the ranking would sometimes become incorrect if a player went off course at the same time as reaching the finish line.
- Fixed an issue in “Grand Prix”, “Knockout Tour”, and “VS Race”, where the CPU’s ranking would sometimes drop after reaching the finish line.
- Fixed an issue in “Knockout Tour” in “Online Play” where other players’ ratings would sometimes appear as “0” on the results screen.
- Fixed an issue where a Spiny Shell would sometimes pass the first place player in “Wireless Play” or “Online Play.”
- Fixed an issue where players would sometimes be sent flying backwards a great distance when hit by a Spiny Shell.
- Fixed an issue where the second item in an item slot would sometimes not disappear when hit by Lightning.
- Fixed an issue where hitting the base of a pillar in mid-air would sometimes cause a large jump.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused movement to become unstable when doing a wall ride on water.
- Fixed an issue where players would sometimes be swept away strongly after landing when doing a mini jump while going up a river.
- Fixed an issue where players would sometimes pass through the ground when hit by a car driving on the road.
- Fixed an issue in “Free Roam” where players would sometimes be unable to enter pipes correctly after exiting a trailer.
- Fixed an issue where the results screen would sometimes become distorted after spectating “Balloon Battle” in “Online Play.”
- Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes not proceed to the course selection screen after exiting a pipe during “Free Roam” in “Online Play.”
- Fixed an issue where Bullet Bill would sometimes slip through walls when used in “Sky-High Sundae.”
- Fixed an issue where players would sometimes get stuck on a wall at the start of the race heading from “Airship Fortress” to “Shy Guy Bazaar.”
- Fixed an issue where players would sometimes get stuck in walls when using a Bullet Bill in “Bowser’s Castle.”
- Fixed an issue in “Cheep Cheep Falls” where item boxes were sometimes difficult to pick up when Smart Steering was turned on.
- Fixed an issue in “Knockout Tour” “Spiny Rally” where sometimes there was an item box buried in the ground.
- Several other issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.
