Mario Kart World Direct (Thursday 17th April 2025 @ 14:00 BST)

[Julius]

 

[Julius]

Reminder that this takes place tomorrow at 14:00 BST, and will run for approx. 15 minutes – and can also be watched via the Nintendo Today! app:

Edited Wednesday at 02:17 PM by Julius

[Julius]

Late tuning in because of an appointment, but Nintendo disabled live chat for this lol.

Rewind is going to be huge for learning the new tracks and mastering techniques! 

Edited Thursday at 01:15 PM by Julius

[Ashley]

So it was basically one of those overview trailers rather than a direct?

[Kav]

Absolutely fuck all justified the higher price.

[Julius]

Just now, Ashley said:

So it was basically one of those overview trailers rather than a direct?

I mean, you could say the same about most, if not all, of the game-focused Directs 

[Glen-i]

8 minutes ago, Julius said:

Rewind is going to be huge for learning the new tracks and mastering techniques! 

If I can do that during Time Trials, then yeah, it'd be useful.

Not much use in every other mode though.

Edited Thursday at 01:19 PM by Glen-i

[Dufniall]

6 minutes ago, Julius said:

Late tuning in because of an appointment, but Nintendo disabled live chat for this lol.

Rewind is going to be huge for learning the new tracks and mastering techniques! 

Not on the American stream, flooded by DROP THE PRICE comments again.

Love seeing cameos such as the SMB3 Piranha plant blowing a spike ball. Missions in the overworld are a welcome addition as well!

Only fear is that the jump mechanic results in everyone hopping all the time for that speed boost, that's not going to be a lot of fun.

[drahkon]

4 minutes ago, Kav said:

Absolutely fuck all justified the higher price.

OPEN WORLD, BABY!  

But yeah, it's Mario Kart. Nothing particularly new and interesting for me.

It'll sell like hot cakes, though, and Nintendo will sell all their games at the higher price from then on.

[Glen-i]

5 minutes ago, Dufniall said:

Only fear is that the jump mechanic results in everyone hopping all the time for that speed boost, that's not going to be a lot of fun.

So I've actually used this mechanic a bit. Your steering capability goes down the toilet while you're doing it.

It also felt like you moved a little bit slower while charging it up, so if you mess it up, or get hit, it's not good.

[Cube]

Some thoughts

•  The way costumes fill the already busy character screen (instead of selecting a character and changing costume), I'm not sure I'd even want to look for extra costumes. 
• The challenges seem a bit underwhelming, and it implies you get nothing for them, I wonder if there will even be a progress trigger.
• Is this actual battle mode with elimination returning for the first time since Mario Kart 64? It's a bit disappointing that you cant play it on the open world. 
• The stunts seem quite cool, would have been another thing that would be great to play in the Open World. 
• It seems like there's no regular grand prix option.
• Rewind seems like it will never be viable compared to just carrying on, unless there are some obscene shortcuts. Nice touch for practicing, I guess
• Many of the tracks still seem to look a bit dull, and don't look that fun to race on due to the width of the tracks.

Seems like something to rent or borrow for a week before moving on. 

[Dcubed]

Yup.  I was right.  4 player splitscreen is limited to 30FPS again, just like in MK8 and MK Wii.  That's upsetting.  I'd gladly take a resolution downgrade in 4 player mode if it meant that it ran at 60FPS; like, come on! Double Dash did 60FPS 4 player splitscreen on the bloody GameCube! You have more than enough hardware power to make it happen!

Sigh... guess we'll have to stick with local wireless again.

Still, 16 player local wireless (via 2 player splitscreen) is nice.  It's not the full 24 players, but we know that the game supports 24 player wired LAN (Since we've already played it at the Switch 2 Showcase event); so the option is there if ever you managed to scrounge up enough players and Switch 2s

Mission Mode was not on my bingo card though! That's gonna make Free Roam a lot more interesting!

Likewise, very happy to see that they're not scrimping on the Battle Mode this time around; and that we're getting proper Battle Courses in the base game this time around.  Shame about the lack of Bobomb Blast, but I'd imagine that'll be something they'll potentially add in DLC later on.  The most important thing is that we have proper Battle Courses!

[Glen-i]

1 minute ago, Cube said:

The way costumes fill the already busy character screen (instead of selecting a character and changing costume), I'm not sure I'd even want to look for extra costumes. 

Now, this might mean nothing, but I did spy a "Sort" option that wasn't there in the demo I played.

Whether that consolidates all of a character's costumes into a corresponding folder remains to be seen.

[Cube]

Just now, Glen-i said:

Now, this might mean nothing, but I did spy a "Sort" option that wasn't there in the demo I played.

Whether that consolidates all of a character's costumes into a corresponding folder remains to be seen.

After Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom, I don't really expect the sort button to help all that much. 

[Glen-i]

1 minute ago, Cube said:

After Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom, I don't really expect the sort button to help all that much. 

Fair point.

Also, I know I saw Big Donut on the map. (Which is why Battle Mode wasn't a surprise to me).

So these are definitely on the map.

[Cube]

1 minute ago, Glen-i said:

Fair point.

Also, I know I saw Big Donut on the map. (Which is why Battle Mode wasn't a surprise to me).

So these are definitely on the map.

With playing them on the open world, I meant the option for your and your friends to go to any location and just turn on battle mode, use anywhere as the arena (perhaps set a distance limit or something to keep people contained).

Also, with the power up things for costumes, it would be nice if there was a trophy viewer for those foods, they look cute, I like them more than the costumes they unlock. 

[Dcubed]

Kart & Wario

Wasn't expecting a bloody Game & Wario reference of all things!

[RedShell]

😍

[Glen-i]

1 minute ago, RedShell said:

😍

DK ruining it there.

And no, it's not because of his face. It's because he isn't the same ape as DK Jr.

And also his face.

[Dcubed]

3 minutes ago, RedShell said:

😍

Who's that weirdo on the left!? He looks nothing like DKJR!

[Cube]

5 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

Who's that weirdo on the left!? He looks nothing like DKJR!

DK Jr's grandson, perhaps? Cranky (original DK) -> DK Jr -> DK -> DK's inbred son?

[Glen-i]

I found this first!

[Dcubed]

https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/mario-kart-world-direct-revs-up-new-details-on-the-biggest-mario-kart-ever-coming-to-nintendo-switch-2-at-launch/

Quote

"Battle Mode: Battle Mode is back and more hectic than ever! Secure the gold by collecting the most coins in Coin Runners or burst your rivals’ balloons with items in Balloon Battle. If you pop all of your rival’s balloons, they are out!"

Is that... is that... the return of a proper Elimination Battle Mode!?!?

For the first time since Mario Kart DS!?!?!

PRAISE BE TO THE BALLOONS!!

22 Bomb Buggies is gonna be sick!

Edited Thursday at 02:16 PM by Dcubed

[BowserBasher]

53 minutes ago, Cube said:

It seems like there's no regular grand prix option.

Whilst there’s no regular GP mode as such, you can go into vs mode and select classic 3 lap races. From there I’m assuming you could set 4 races as an option to simulate the classic mode. 

[Ashley]

1 hour ago, Julius said:

I mean, you could say the same about most, if not all, of the game-focused Directs 

In which case all trailers are Nintendo Directs!