Nintendo appears to be holding out on us when it comes to certain details about the upcoming Switch 2 game and latest installment in its iconic racing series, Mario Kart World, as it's teased that "there is more" to the all new Free Roam mode than has been revealed so far.
Free Roam is one of Mario Kart World's big new additions. It's a mode that'll allow you to explore the racing game's tracks freely, with or without friends, take photos, and generally take in all the lovely details of the various environments. It offers quite a change of pace from the high-speed racing modes, and I, for one, am all for it – pretending to follow traffic laws was unironically one of my favorite ways to play Mario Kart when I was a little kid, and this genuinely seems like the perfect mode to do that in, which warms my heart (not that I expect this is a common shared experience).
Anyway, if you weren't feeling particularly excited about the mode, it sounds like you might want to reserve judgement for now. During one of the gameplay sections shown during last week's second Treehouse: Live stream, it's noted: "There is more to Free Roam mode than we're talking about here, so please stay tuned for the dedicated Mario Kart Direct that's going to be coming up in a few weeks."
Dive into a new Free Roam mode in Mario Kart World! 🌊 Day 2 of Nintendo Treehouse: Live | Nintendo Switch 2 continues: https://t.co/v6v1dVbSFe pic.twitter.com/SneH0ysS1VApril 4, 2025
How mysterious. Nintendo hasn't given us any more clues as to what else Free Roam is hiding. Personally, I'm hoping we could see something akin to Mario Kart DS's Mission Mode, which introduced a number of challenges to experience the racing game's tracks in different ways. Maybe, in a similar fashion, we might be able to discover special quests to complete. Mario Kart DS even had boss battles in separate locations – perhaps we could even uncover hidden areas housing things like that? This is all speculation, but it does feel like the kind of thing that'd fit in nicely.
The good news is that there's not long to wait to find out, anyway. That aforementioned Mario Kart World Direct is set to take place on April 17, and after that, there'll be less than two months to go before its June 5 release date (the same day as the Switch 2 itself).
Be sure to keep up with the latest Nintendo Switch 2 news with our coverage of the second Treehouse: Live stream.
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