New Mario Kart game shown for Nintendo Switch 2

One name idea I have for the game is Mario Kart IX-Treme.

I think 24 players is a great idea although I do think Nintendo could add an extra touch by making 8 players and 12 players options as well, though if that is possible without taking up too much extra time in production.
 
24 racers. The wide roads will be less lonely.
I wonder if the rival cpu will tail and bump the player.
 
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It will be such a relief to finally have a full successor to Mario Kart 8 after over 11 years(!?). I never picked up 8 Deluxe since i'd already played the Wii U courses so exhaustively—the BCP just made it a mix between courses i've overplayed and courses that often didn't seem to live up to them. I'm not sure about getting the Switch 2 right off the bat, but i'm sure it'll be nice to soak up everything about this game, even just secondhand.

In theory, new is the best thing this game can be. Buuuut Mario Kart 7 pulled together such a solid foundation for the series, making every previous game feel incomplete in my opinion. Then 8 was such a graphical feast, even as someone who usually doesn't prefer realism. Part of me is unimpressed with the apparently more stylized rendering… fretting about whether features like gliding will return… I don't know what to feel! I hope they can strike the right balance, whatever that even is, creating something i didn't know i wanted.

The character designs are a bit surprising but very welcome. Mario Kart seems even more well-known than the main series, so i wasn't expecting it to veer away from the "generic" look. I wouldn't have even argued that it needed to? Is it truly the end of the eternal, paper-birthday-plate reign of model sheets from 2002??

Donkey Kong's redesign… is making me realize all over again how i really don't care for the usual one. He looked so much better in the movie and he already looks even better here. (By the way, i can't tell why people are calling this the same as the movie design! This feels like the converse of the debacle over the Princess Peach: Showtime! boxart, where her face was just at a slightly different angle and people acted like they didn't recognize her. Now we're conflating designs that look totally distinct, i'm losing it—)
 
Potentially hot take but I hope MK9 removes gliding, anti-gravity, kart customization, and the coin mechanic (and item). I like anti-gravity but it's time for a new gimmick. Additionally, I don't hate gliding but it doesn't add anything to the formula in my opinion and is low-key kinda boring. Kart customization is honestly annoying and with 4 people takes longer than it should. The coin is the only "7 era" (2011-2024) mechanic that I absolutely despise and hope gets trashed in the new Mario Kart. It doesn't add any skill like it's intended to and is really tedious to collect. I also hate getting the coin item from the roulette and everyone that has played 8 knows why. I think it would also make 9 a lot more unique from its predecessors if these mechanics were removed. And the game better be called 9 and not 10 because I'm never calling Tour Mario Kart 9 ever.
 
Kart customization getting removed because folks can't settle on something is a hot take and not inherently the fault of the system and easily fixable, if folks have issues picking a combo or that they take too long, they need to introduce presets or the ability to save your build.

Kart customization is not getting removed anyway. We already see the Monster from 3D Hot Rally (or Tiny Titan from Mario Kart Wii) on Standard Tires, tires it normally doesn't use, and we see Standard, Monster, Slim, and Roller tires confirmed. I don't think we're going to get more customization though, unless things drastically change in the next reveal trailer.
 
In my opinion, the way that Mario Kart 7 adjusted tricking and added gliding and underwater driving was excellent at making it feel more Mario-y without falling back on visual clichés. You're timing jumps and bounces, and adventuring through land, sea, and sky, elements that deeply reflect the original Super Mario Bros.. That parallelism makes it feel less arbitrary and purposeless as a Mario-themed sports game because fundamental features that define the main series are cleverly translated over.

Also gliding was significantly better in its debut. They sucked a lot of the fun out of the controls in 8 where it does feel pretty whatever.

I liked how antigravity added onto this by reflecting the new frontier of Super Mario Galaxy. To me, the gravity-warping gameplay felt like the next evolution of the series and even platformers as a whole, just as much as the jump to 3D. Didn't end up being the case, but still. I'm really split on whether it ought to return. A break from 8's set of mechanics would feel fresh, and that's the headliner. But i think not being so pinned down to the earth imparts a really freeing feeling that's way more valuable than the subtle camerawork and smooth curvatures tend to make it feel. It makes some of the flatter courses seem even more boring and antiquated, and i had the same feelings about the BCP for how much it downplayed antigravity. But that might just be me, and i haven't quite figured out why it hits me so strongly.

Coins can go, i absolutely agree with that. Their stat effect is imperceptible and they make Item Boxes leave you a sitting duck—you know this all already. Unlike the other mechanics, it feels like they were reintroduced just for the Mario iconography. You couldn't even buy anything with them—they just unlock random vehicle parts, which removes the potential player choice and expression—but maybe that's for the best since you can only get 10 per race. Now i'm just imagining a 2D-Mario-style system, where the counter persists between races, and whenever it hits 100, you know you're get something good for longterm play (even as simple as a shop voucher). But ultimately i'd still prefer to go without them for a while.
 
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