Mario Kart World began life on Switch, before racing over to Nintendo Switch 2
In a new interview in Nintendo’s Ask the Developer series, it has been revealed that Mario Kart World, the brand-new game launching on Nintendo Switch 2, first began as an original Nintendo Switch game.
Yes, the game was first in development for Nintendo Switch, the 24-player count, the open world, all of it was in development for the console that already had a Mario Kart game. But it seems that the game started to become harder to optimise for the console, which left the developers scratching their heads.
“We worked on it while kicking the can down the road in terms of deciding what to give up on, so at some point, we knew it was going to get messy. But as we’d decided to release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe — Booster Course Pass, we thought that would give us a bit more time to continue development. 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.”
The interview also confirmed that while karts won’t be customisable like they were in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, they will have some personalisation with stickers. As you can see below, you will discover stickers as you explore the world, and you can then apply them to your kart. There were no restrictions given in the interview, but I would imagine you can only have a few at a time.
The interview, which can be found here, included a host of concept art and sketches from the game, giving you an idea of how everything came together. That includes the addition of Cow as a playable character, which was actually the beginning for everyone else being added.
“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. 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 interview also includes videos showing off more of the game, as well as an extended version of the games main theme, so if you want to learn more about the game, give it a read. We got to play Mario Kart World recently and that included time in a solo race, a multiplayer race and the new Knockout Tour, all of which were delightful.
If you are looking to add the game to your Nintendo Switch 2 game library, check out our Bargain Guide to score the best deal you can. The game itself is out on June 5, alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 console.
