Article

Mario Kart World makes racing feel bigger than ever

6 July 2026

A kid friendly AxelGamer look at Mario Kart World, with open road racing, Free Roam exploring, Knockout Tour madness, 24 racer chaos, and silly items on Nintendo Switch 2.

Mario Kart has always been one of those games where everyone thinks they are the best driver until a blue shell appears and ruins their whole plan. That is why Mario Kart World sounds so exciting to me. It is not just another set of normal tracks. Nintendo has made it feel like the Mushroom Kingdom and lots of other places are all joined together into one big racing world, which is a pretty huge idea for a kart game.

The biggest thing that makes Mario Kart World stand out is that the tracks are connected by roads. In older Mario Kart games, you would pick a course, race three laps, then jump back to a menu. That is still fun, but this one sounds more like a proper road trip with boosts, tricks, traffic, shortcuts and heaps of chaos everywhere. Nintendo describes it as a world where the world is your racetrack, and that makes me imagine zooming from a beach to a city to a desert while everyone is throwing bananas like total maniacs.

I reckon the coolest mode is Free Roam. Sometimes in racing games I do not want to be serious straight away. I want to muck around, look for cool spots, practise drifting, crash into signs, and see if I can launch off something silly. Free Roam sounds perfect for that because you can drive around with friends and explore between races. That makes Mario Kart World feel less like just a competition and more like a place you can hang out in.

There is also Knockout Tour, which sounds properly stressful in a fun way. Instead of just doing one race and seeing who wins, racers go through checkpoint after checkpoint while the players at the back get knocked out. That means you cannot relax, even if you are doing alright. One bad corner, one badly timed shell, or one banana you did not see could send you out. I like modes like that because they make every second matter, but they are still silly enough that losing can be funny.

The 24 racer races sound wild too. Mario Kart already feels hectic with twelve racers, so doubling that is basically asking for mayhem. More racers means more items, more bumps, more people stealing your perfect racing line, and more chances for someone to zoom past right at the finish. It might be annoying sometimes, but in a good family game way, because everyone gets a story out of it. Someone will yell because they got hit near the end. Someone else will laugh because they won after being terrible for most of the race.

I also like that Mario Kart World is on Nintendo Switch 2, because it feels like the sort of launch game that shows off a new console without being too serious. You do not need to understand a giant story or learn heaps of complicated controls. You just pick a character, hold the accelerator, try to drift properly, and hope the item box gives you something useful. That is why Mario Kart works so well for families. Younger kids can still play, older kids can try to master shortcuts, and parents can join in even if they pretend they do not care about winning.

My favourite part of Mario Kart games is how they are fair and unfair at the same time. If you practise, you can get better at drifting, using boosts, learning corners, and saving items. But the game can still throw absolute nonsense at you. That might sound bad, but it is what makes it funny. A perfect race can become a disaster in two seconds, and a terrible race can turn around if you get the right item. Mario Kart World looks like it keeps that feeling, just with bigger roads and more places for things to go wrong.

I am also keen to see how the courses feel when they are joined together. Normal Mario Kart tracks are like little theme parks, with one big idea each. An open world racing map could make the whole thing feel like a giant theme park that you drive through. If Nintendo gets it right, exploring could be just as fun as racing. I hope there are heaps of tiny details, like funny signs, weird jumps, hidden paths, and places where you can just stop and say, wait, can I drive up there?

The best thing is that Mario Kart World still seems friendly. It is not trying to be a realistic racing game where you need to know every car part. It is bright, silly, fast, and easy to understand. That matters because games do not have to be super serious to be exciting. Sometimes the best gaming moments are when you are laughing because your kart flew off a jump, bounced into a wall, and somehow still landed ahead of your sibling.

So yes, I am keen for Mario Kart World. The open roads, Free Roam exploring, Knockout Tour pressure and huge races all sound like they could make it feel fresh while still being classic Mario Kart. I do not know if I would win very much, but I do know I would have fun trying. And if someone hits me with a blue shell at the finish line, I will probably complain loudly, then start the next race straight away.