If you'd asked me before I played Mario Kart World for the Nintendo Switch 2 whether I considered myself a competitive person, I likely would have said, "Not really." As a general rule, I avoid conflict and even my boss here at 12DOVE has said my best quality is how personable I am. And yet, after just half an hour with Mario Kart World, I was calling for digital blood and (politely) demanding a second go around.
For the most part, Mario Kart World is like any other Mario Kart game: you pick a character, their vehicle, and you zoom around a couple tracks until someone is declared the winner. Simple enough, right? Complicating that tried-and-true formula in Mario Kart World are a couple of different design decisions that effectively lean on the game's name to make it really feel like a whole world of karting with Mario.
Basically, courses in a circuit are actually connected and you drive from one to the next, and there's even a Free Roam mode where you can (as the name implies) freely roam around, explore, and take pictures to your heart's content, Forza Horizon-style. But it's Mario Kart World's Knockout Tour mode that was, if you'll pardon the wordplay, the real knockout here.
It's a knockout
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch 2
Release date: June 5, 2025
While I can't speak to the Free Roam aspect of Mario Kart World as it wasn't part of my early Nintendo Switch 2 demo, I did drive from one track to another and then another. It certainly makes Mario Kart World feel like an interconnected place rather than disparate and distinct chunks. But this pales in comparison to what Knockout Tour mode accomplishes.
Knockout Tour mode puts 24 players – the most active participants in the series' history – through back-to-back courses with various checkpoints, which sounds an awful lot like just… playing regular Mario Kart, right? Wrong! Each major checkpoint includes a specific placement requirement; anyone that doesn't cross that line with at least the placement required is knocked out (get it?) of the race until it's completed.
Functionally, this means roughly a single, long, 15-minute race with high stakes and adrenaline. Traditional races are relatively quickly resolved, and there's really no major ramifications until it's over. You place, or you don't, and it doesn't particularly matter how the race was going for you in the early moments. In Knockout Tour mode, it's all about consistently doing better than the majority until it's just you left.
Again, I've no real competitive bone in my body, and yet the moment it became clear that there was a consistent threat of elimination and that any falling behind on my part would mean sitting out the rest of the round while my peers got to keep having fun, something switched on inside of me. As I took turns and tried to grab items and avoid enemies, I even started letting out little gasps and sighs of frustration and relief, depending on how the overall race was going for me.
In the end, I came in 8th. Not the best result, and just outside the cutoff for the final laps, but it felt earned in a way that few video games make me feel. The entire race up to that point had me extremely invested, constantly looking around for shortcuts and the like, anything at all to quickly make up ground ahead of the next checkpoint. It also didn't hurt that I played nearly every single round I got my hands on as a big Boo with aristocratic clothing – monocle included. I didn't get a second chance at Knockout Tour, but I suspect I'll continue thinking about my redemption all the way through to release.
Mario Kart World is set to launch as a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive on June 5, 2025, and it's undoubtedly one of my most anticipated upcoming Switch 2 games so far. I'm sure the hype will only build by the time April 17 rolls around, which is when Nintendo is set to run a dedicated Mario Kart World Direct to dive into even more detail.
Switch 2 Spotlight: Dive deeper into Nintendo's new console
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