When the Switch 2 made its grand debut in a lengthy Nintendo Direct livestream six weeks ago (so much has happened in those six weeks), a lot of gamers had two major questions concerning the console's impending June 5 launch:
Is Mario Kart World really worth $80?
Is Mario Kart World enough to justify getting the console on day one?
Though Nintendo has tried to answer that first question, many of the fans I know still aren't convinced. However, after getting roughly six hours of relatively unconstrained hands-on time with the game recently, I think I can answer the second one.
In short, yes, I absolutely think Mario Kart World has enough meat on the bone to keep Switch 2 early adopters happy until more first-party games like Donkey Kong Bananza start dropping later in the summer. (And if you're looking for more Switch 2 launch titles to play, I have some recommendations.) The iconic kart racing series' first foray into open-world design carries a ton of promise, and after getting to spend a huge chunk of time roaming around its giant world, I think people will find plenty to do for the first few weeks after launch when there may not be a lot of other new games to play.
Also, did I mention that I got paid to play Mario Kart World for six hours? The lengthy pre-launch demo event I attended included a pretty comprehensive look at what Mario Kart World has to offer. Let's dive in.
Mario Kart World: My final hands-on impressions
I am going to spend so much time in free roam
In case you've been living in the jungle or something since early April, you should know that Mario Kart World's big change to the series is the inclusion of a seemingly very large open world that players can roam around at their leisure. Every racetrack is contained within this world, and in the classic Grand Prix mode, you actually have to race other drivers to the next track after you finish one.
This flagship Switch 2 launch game didn't take long to make me grin like a child, as I realized early in the demo that you can seamlessly enter free roam from the game's main menu without any kind of loading screen whatsoever. You can actually see Mario idly driving around the world behind the menu, and pressing the Switch 2's plus button removes the UI, places the camera behind him, and sets you off on your adventure instantly. It's a really neat trick.
But what matters most is what actually happens once you're in free roam. This isn't necessarily like other open-world racing games such as Burnout Paradise or Forza Horizon where you drive up to an icon on the map to start a series of races, as far as I could tell. Instead, the rhythm of free roaming revolves around simply driving until you see something fun to do. In my experience, this happens about every 30 seconds or so.
The fun largely involves big blue P-switches that you can drive over to start little bespoke challenge missions. Each one of these takes about 30 seconds at max to complete if you do it right, and they come in a handful of different flavors: collecting blue coins, driving through a series of checkpoints before time comes out, or even completing something akin to a 3D platforming challenge with a kart. If you're coming to this game looking for something more weighty than that, I don't know if you'll find it here; I don't think Mario Kart World is aiming to wrap the player in the mystery of its world the same way The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did when the first Switch came out.
That's fine, though, because what it is aiming to do is give you a lot of fun, bite-sized activities that you can do between intense online races. It's an easygoing, stress-free experience, one that will make for a perfect couch companion while a baseball game is on the TV. Need to kill a couple of hours on a flight? Perfect, just go into free roam and keep hitting blue switches until you can't anymore. I don't know how many of those are in the game, but you get the impression early on that the number is huge. Another important thing to note is that there is more to the free roam mode than just P-switches, as I encountered special collectible coins and even some other things I won't spoil that I couldn't even really explain if I wanted to.
In total, I got about 90 minutes with the free roam mode, and it left me wanting to play a lot more. Crucially, it seems like free roaming is something you can simply choose to do if you want to, not something you have to do to have fun with Mario Kart World. All of the traditional modes (as well as new ones like the battle royale-esque Knockout Tour) are here too, and you can access them the same way you always could from a menu.
Put simply, this is going to be the perfect podcast game.
But an open world is not the only profound addition to Mario Kart World
Real quick, I'd like to acknowledge that this isn't just Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with an open world jammed into it. Nintendo has actually made some really meaningful changes to the core mechanics. As you may have seen in various promotional materials, karts can now grind on rails and even ride on walls, both things that are new to the series. Of course, every track and even the non-track parts of the open world have been meticulously constructed with those mechanics in mind, and mastering them will be key to putting yourself in the position to win...until a blue shell ruins everything.
What impressed me the most about this is that there's legitimate technique to it. Nintendo has added a new move to every racer's toolkit, where if you hold down the drift button without turning in a particular direction, your racer will charge up a little vertical jump. This jump is how you get onto rails and walls in the first place, and I was told you can also use it to avoid certain obstacles and even shells coming your way. What makes this work so well is that it takes a few seconds to prime the jump, so you can't just decide on a whim that you'd like to ride the wall next to you. You need to learn each track and plan ahead, and this is something that I think free roaming will also help with, since you can drive freely on each track without worrying about other racers.
To wrap back around to my original point, I'm no longer worried about whether or not I'll be satisfied with Mario Kart World as the Switch 2's only big first-party launch game. For starters, there are other games to play, contrary to what some people might say online. Beyond that, I got the distinct impression that there's a ton to see and do in Mario Kart World, and all of it can be seen and done at as leisurely a pace as you would like. There aren't even a bunch of overwhelming icons on the world map, if that helps.
Of course, to enjoy all this, you have to complete a very important challenge first: Actually securing a Switch 2 preorder.
