Nintendo has confirmed numerous details about Mario Kart World at a direct conference - including modes, routes, characters and new items. Here you get an overview of the fresh information from us!
Mario Kart World will be the most important title for the new Switch 2 when it appears on June 5, 2025. No wonder that Nintendo today broadcast another direct conference only around the new Funracer and revealed all kinds of new information and details in 15 minutes. In the following we want to give you an overview of the relevant news.
Game modes
For publication, Mario Kart World will have several game modes: Grand Prix, Knockout Tour, Free Roam and Battle-Mode. Grand Prix follows the traditional cup format from previous Mario-Kart games with four races each. Knockout tour follows an elimination format over several routes, with players leaving when they do not reach checkpoints on time. Free roam can drive around stress-free, whereby you can also find and start missions here via special P switches. In Battle mode you can expect other game variants such as Time Trials (time race), VS Races (versus race), Team Races (team race), Balloon Battle (balloon battle) and Coin Runners (coin hunters).
Characters
In Mario Kart World, there will be a number of traditional characters in playable form, including of course Mario, Luigi, Yoshi or Bowser. But there are also completely new faces that you can use to compete, including GOOBBA, Spike and Cow. Other new drivers can also be found in the selection of character, with each character of their own properties and advantages. The same applies to the vehicles, which you can also choose freely after the character selection, so that you can theoretically compete with various advantages and own shafts in every race.
Stretch
Nintendo has confirmed a total of eight routes today, which will have a appearance in Mario Kart World. Among them are five completely new routes and three other tracks from former Mario-Kart branches.
New routes
- Mario Bros. Circuit
- Crown City
- Salty Salty Speedway
- Starview Peak
- Boo Cinema
Return classic routes
- Toad's Factory (Mario Kart Wii)
- Peach Beach (Mario Double Dash)
- Wario Shipyard (Mario Kart 7)
During the direct, the famous Rainbow Road was also shown briefly, which apparently will celebrate a comeback.
Items und Power-Ups
A total of six new items were confirmed for Mario Kart World, which you can use for the first time within the Funracer series.
- Coin Shell / Münzpanzer- leaves a coin lane
- Ice Flower / Eisblume- freezed opponents and throws them off the track
- Hammer / Wurfhammer- Throws several loungers that throw the opponents off the track
- Mega Mushroom / Megapilz- really make yourself huge and let opponents roll your opponent
- Feather / Feder- With feather -light jumps you can avoid opposing attack
- Kamek- The magician who can transform opponents
New game mechanics
Two completely new game mechanics find their way into the game: Charge Jump aka Power jumps and rewind aka.
You can put power jumps down by capturing jumping energy by holding the drift buttons while you are straight ahead. By letting go of the buttons, you can then do higher jumps, for example to jump over cars or obstacles.
In free roam and solo races there is the Rewind function, thanks to which you can literally rewind a little in the middle of the race, for example to take a new start on a failed jump. In the meantime, the other racing participants simply continue, so that at least you lose time to them.
You can take a look at the complete Direct in the following, you should have missed them.
Mario Kart World will be released on June 5, 2025 for the Switch 2 - also in a bundle with the console itself, which is then included a corresponding download code.
