A few hours ago, Nintendo posted another episode of its Ask the Developer Series dedicated to upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games, and this time it's all about Mario Kart World. This could very well be the 'killer application' of the new console. Its predecessor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, launched shortly after the launch of the original Switch and was immediately a smashing success. The game has sold over 65 million units to date, becoming one of the best-selling premium titles of all time. Interestingly, Kosuke Yabuki (Producer of the Entertainment Planning & Development Department) revealed in this interview that prototyping on Mario Kart World started even before the predecessor launched on the Switch, while full development began later in 2017. We were thinking about what to do for the next Mario Kart game even during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and we began prototyping in March 2017. It was at the end of that year when we officially started work on it as a project. I felt that in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we were able to perfect the formula that we'd been following in the series up to that point, where players race on individual courses. That’s why, this time, we wanted the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began creating a world map like this. It's an exceedingly long time to make a game by Nintendo's standards. However, the team has significant challenges to overcome, such as doubling the amount of players in a race from 12 to 24 while adding an open world. Everything became much more feasible once the decision was made to move the project to the Nintendo Switch 2. Kenta Sato (Programming Director): When we were developing for the Nintendo Switch system, it was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return. We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 fps in some cases. It was a tough situation. Kosuke Yabuki: We worked on it while kicking the can down the road in terms of deciding what to give up on, so at some point, we knew it was going to get messy. But as we'd decided to release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe — Booster Course Pass, we thought that would give us a bit more time to continue development. That's when the conversation of moving it to the Nintendo Switch 2 system came up, and this suddenly opened up a bunch of possibilities on what we could do. It was truly a ray of hope. Our Nathan Birch was able to check out Mario Kart World during the Nintendo Switch 2 press hands-on event and came away favorably impressed: Mario Kart World feels very much like a shiny new Mario Kart 8 model, which will be great for those looking for more of what that game offered, but there’s no denying the game feels a bit familiar at times. That said, Mario Kart World’s interconnected map is a compelling creation, and while I need to play more, I can imagine a lot of potential ways Nintendo could utilize, and possibly expand, their new racing world. Nintendo may be about to unleash the racing platform they support for the next decade and I’m intrigued to see where this road may lead us. Products mentioned Deal of the Day