Mario Kart World – Nintendo brilliantly evolves a nigh-on perfect racer

After months of anticipation, we finally have Switch 2 in hand and with it, its keystone launch title. Mario Kart World is an integral part of the Switch 2 rollout as the system’s biggest day one experience. There’s little doubt it will shift tens of millions of units, but questions remain about the game’s graphical fidelity, and the merits of its mechanical overhaul from prior Mario Karts. So, is Mario Kart World a worthy open-world racer? And does it pack great graphics to mirror its revved-up reinvention?

Last month, Nintendo revealed that Mario Kart World began life as a Switch 1 title, a game built for the much more constrained Tegra X1-based hybrid. That provoked some interest online: if the core of Mario Kart World could work on the original Switch, why is it only on Switch 2? I think the final game provides some clear answers. Mario Kart World’s fidelity and scope would be tough to match on Nintendo’s last-gen juggernaut. Mario Kart 8 provides us with some useful context. This smaller, more track-oriented title shipped on Wii U in 2014, and Switch 1 in 2017 in visually upgraded form. Perhaps it doesn’t reflect the peak of what the OG Switch might have been capable of, as we never got a proper Switch exclusive Mario Kart entry but it does showcase the previous high water mark for the series’ visuals and remains one of the best-looking racing games on Switch.

The most obvious upgrade comes down to scope. Mario Kart World features a vast, interconnected world linked with kilometres upon kilometres of track. You can see structures spanning the entire horizon when you cruise through the game world – something that Mario Kart 8 never had to contend with. A sense of distance is preserved through the use of volumetric fog, along with strong bloom to emphasize the dazzling exposure of the sun set against terrain.

The game uses a discrete level of detail (LOD) system, but detail level transitions are fairly unobtrusive and kept to a minimum for the most part. Pop-in for elements like grass and cars is not terribly obvious and it’s made more subtle with a GPU-sparing dithered fade. Plus, everything is built to a reasonable level of detail and artistic quality – even in segments you don’t reach in the game’s races. Sometimes you can make out a bit of conspicuous texture tiling, but it’s not common. Mario Kart World portrays a stable, consistent looking open world better than any original Switch game that I can think of. I think this is the key reason Mario Kart World isn’t a Switch 1 game – the compromises would be very large relative to what we’re seeing here. Plus, the racer count in this new game gets doubled from 12 players to 24 players, increasing the visual mayhem.