Mario Kart World looks like Super Mario and is perfect for the Switch 2

Was Nintendo right to choose the new Mario Kart as the console's launch game? Definitely yes, even if some would have preferred the new Super Mario, which has been missing for years, but if we look at the sales figures we can only agree with the Kyoto company's managers. The Mario Kart series has sold over 189.7 million copies worldwide through March 2025, making it the best-selling racing saga ever. On Switch Maria Kart Deluxe alone sold 68 million, making it the top selling game on Nintendo Switch. The problem is that it wasn't easy to think of a sequel to a racing game that was born practically perfect. That is to say, the big risk was to replay the same game from eight years ago. And to some extent it seemed to many, but only because they didn't play it enough.

What changes?

Mario Kart World is Mario Kart, played the same way. You race, you accelerate, you drift around corners, you get powers and then you spite your opponents to finish first. So what does it change? Everything and nothing. It changes the structure, we are inside a sort of open world, with 32 tracks that makes the game explorable as if it were Super Mario. It changes the physics of the clashes, the collisions that are even more precise and fun, it changes the driving and the world that revolves around the course that always remains peaceful and joyful but now seems with the new console (and the new hardware) finally more colourful and more alive. All tracks are connected in a large explorable world. You travel between races without loading, there is off-roading, there are stunts, freezing power and .water races where you have to tame the waves. You can eat at the restaurant, slide on the rails and jump against the wall. There are challenges for up to 24 players at once which is pure chaos. While the most fun new feature is the survival mode. There's also free racing but it's kind of thrown in there, in the sense that you don't really understand the point of it. All these novelties do not distort the racing game. As does the ability to play with the camera and the voice chat that allows you to grimace when overtaking or being overtaken. So it's not a little, 'more of the same' Mario Kart that has copied the best from Super Mario platformers. Once again, for the umpteenth time, it is something new even though it is played the same way. Nintendo, we are used to it by now, changes very little but always manages to be entertaining. Year after year. Decade after decade. That's why there couldn't be a better game at launch.