Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit overview trailer gives you a look at modes, creating courses, and more
Reality blends with the virtual world
A new Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit overview trailer gives you an in-depth look at how you set up courses, items you can use during a race, and what modes and races will be available.
In this new augmented reality twist on the classic Mario Kart set up, you race with real AR toy karts that you control and race with your Switch to blend the real and virtual worlds together. This essentially means you can transform your home into your very own Mario Kart track, and the new trailer details just how it works.
In order to set up the game, you use four numbered cardboard gates that you can place around a room. You then drive through the gates in numerical order and the path you take becomes the course. From your standard loops to tracks full of twists and turns, you can create any kind of course you want.
Nintendo recommends that you have a space that's at least 3.5m x 3m / 10 x 12ft to play in. The scenery in your home then becomes the course, which you can see virtually on the Switch as you race, as well as in reality as the AR toy zooms around your homemade track.
As well as detailing the ins and outs of setting up your course, it also gives an overview of the controls, and gives you a look at some of the items, races, and modes you can expect to see. Grand Prix is the main mode of the game, where you'll be facing up against the Koopalings across eight Grand Prix that feature 24 different courses in total.
Many classic items such as Mushrooms, Bullet Bills, Bloopers, and the dreaded Red Shells are included, and the AR toy will react according to what you use in the game. So if you use a Mushroom, your AR toy will also boost along the track, and if you get hit by something in the virtual game, the kart in the real world will stop.
First announced as part of Mario's 35th anniversary celebrations, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is set to release on October 16. A Mario set and Luigi set will be available to give you one of the two AR karts available. Each set comes complete with the character kart, course set up, game, and a USB charging cable.
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I started out writing for the games section of a student-run website as an undergrad, and continued to write about games in my free time during retail and temp jobs for a number of years. Eventually, I earned an MA in magazine journalism at Cardiff University, and soon after got my first official role in the industry as a content editor for Stuff magazine. After writing about all things tech and games-related, I then did a brief stint as a freelancer before I landed my role as a staff writer here at 12DOVE. Now I get to write features, previews, and reviews, and when I'm not doing that, you can usually find me lost in any one of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games, tucking into another delightful indie, or drinking far too much tea for my own good.