I may only have played three hours of it, but I’m already starting to get the feeling that Mario Kart World should really be called Mario Kart Knockout Tour. The new last-one-standing race mode, really is the star of the show, adding yet another layer of tension and mayhem to the already chaotic kart racer, and such a new addition deserves to have its name up in lights. And so I find it a curious decision that Nintendo has settled on the Switch 2 launch game’s open world as the main draw. I get it on an optics level – a Mario Kart unbound from the confines of pre-determined tracks has been long desired by fans – but after getting my hands on its free roam offering recently, it sadly left me feeling underwhelmed. Let me explain why.
When thinking of an open-world racing game, it's by no means unfair to make comparisons with Forza Horizon. Developer Playground Games has mastered this specific subgenre, even earning itself an IGN Game of the Year award with its most recent effort. Each game in the series features a delicately sculpted open world that packs in challenge, wonder, and, most importantly, fun. I’d be lying if I said I found much of any of those qualities in the roughly half an hour I spent speeding around Mario Kart World’s sizeable map. It’s largely empty, lacks atmosphere, and feels bizarrely devoid of activities to get stuck into.
Much of my time in free roam consisted of dashing along expanses of flat grassland, desert, or lightly choppy seas, looking for something to do. There are some challenges to get your teeth stuck into, but I found them largely repetitive and little more than trivial distractions. They mainly consist of P Switch challenges which, when activated, create short time trials to complete. I found these fun at first, but quickly realised they’re mostly rinse and repeat efforts involving collecting a certain amount of coins or whizzing through checkpoints within a time limit. And when these rarely take more than 10 or 15 seconds to finish, they soon lose all novelty. It’s not a promising sign to walk away from a demo feeling as if you’ve already exhausted the amount of entertainment you can get from a game’s side activities. And while I do hope that a more in-depth scouring of the world reveals more hidden fun, there’s another factor that has me concerned about how it all plays out.
You do get rewarded with a shiny new sticker to place on your chosen kart when completing these P Switch challenges, but this is pretty much as far as unlockables go. It feels weird that progression is still largely locked behind the series’ long-term tradition of racing in Grand Prixs, as this open world seems the perfect opportunity to hide new characters and karts in secret corners. New outfits can be found by driving through one of Yoshi’s many restaurants on the island, but they’re just as, if not more accessible, in race scenarios.
Barn finds – explorative missions in Forza Horizon that involve hunting down a hidden vehicle within a section of the map like a piece of buried treasure – are some of my favourite things to do in Playground’s series. If there really isn’t anything similar in the final game (and, unfortunately, no signs at my preview event suggest there is), then it feels like a missed opportunity, especially when 3D Mario platformers are so packed with secrets. That sense of wonder you so often feel when discovering something off the beaten track just doesn’t seem to exist here; instead, the closest I ever got in this demo was stumbling across a big green warp pipe that did nothing more than send me 20 metres down the road. Why don’t these lead to hidden areas with challenges of their own to complete?
It’s this apparent lack of any sort of progression or meaningful activities that has me wondering how little time I’ll actually spend in this open world. Yes, there are Peach Medallions to collect, which can prove a fun challenge to reach – you’ll need to demonstrate a mastery of the new rail grinding and wall riding mechanics – but, again, they can only unlock stickers. This in itself isn’t an issue (fun for fun’s sake is largely the name of the game for Nintendo), but I can’t help but feel like I would like something more substantial to use them on, such as how excess moons can be used on cosmetics in one of Super Mario Odyssey’s many stores.
Maybe I’m just a grumpy man disillusioned with the world he lives in now that he’s hit his mid-thirties, though. Because, despite these grumbles, I do need to remind myself that kids big and small will have a great time roaming around this colourful paradise, zooming around and taking in the sights of its sandy beaches and winding city streets. Plus, I’d be lying if the seven-year-old part of my brain didn’t activate when I drove into the back of a massive truck, took over its controls Cappy-style, and wreaked havoc by ploughing into every other vehicle and breakable coin-filled brick in sight. It was a rare moment of wonder and Nintendo creativity that seems worryingly lacking elsewhere. Yes, there’s a dynamic weather system, day/night cycle, and morphing toe-tapping soundtrack that shifts depending on what biome you’re in, but none of these delightful presentation touches truly added to the fun factor.
The open world is crucial to Mario Kart World outside of its free roam mode, though, and that can’t be ignored. The way these open spaces connect tracks together is very clever, and allows for more varied course combinations to be created. Plus, the exciting new Knockout Tour just wouldn’t be the same without it. The way it snakes cross-country through the many different environments is impressive, and I could see this mode being nowhere near as fun if it took place on an extensive number of laps of the same track. This world does have its merits, it’s just not in the exploration of it.
When treated like a toy box, as opposed to an open world on the scale of Forza Horizon or even Burnout Paradise, there is some joy to be found in Free Roam. I just wouldn’t go in expecting that open world to leave a lasting impression – perhaps a hard pill to swallow considering the $80 price tag. The racing is still the highlight of Mario Kart, and the new Knockout Mode makes it feel as exciting as it has in a long time. So much so that it really deserves to be placed front and center, and not buried in its relatively underwhelming world.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
