{"id":1206251,"date":"2026-02-20T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=600439"},"modified":"2026-02-20T12:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:49:00","slug":"mario-kart-world-has-been-in-development-for-8-years-as-nintendo-struggled-to-improve-a-perfect-formula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/mario-kart-world-has-been-in-development-for-8-years-as-nintendo-struggled-to-improve-a-perfect-formula\/","title":{"rendered":"Mario Kart World has been in development for 8 years as Nintendo struggled to improve a \u2018perfect\u2019 formula"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you asked any Nintendo fan prior to the reveal of the Nintendo Switch 2<\/a>, they\u2019d likely tell you that the world would never see a sequel for Mario Kart 8<\/a><\/em>. Why would Nintendo bother? A full decade after its release, the latest entry in the iconic racing franchise kept selling like hotcakes<\/a>. In the age of live-service games, a company like Nintendo could simply continue updating the base game to its existing base of customers. Right?<\/p>\n

Except, as it turns out, Nintendo was not merely sitting on its laurels. According to a new developer diary for Mario Kart World<\/a><\/em>, the Japanese developer has quietly been working on a follow-up for Mario Kart 8<\/em> for a long time now. Technically, Nintendo was already thinking about what it might do in the next game during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe<\/em>. Actual prototype development began in March 2017, a few years after the initial 2014 release of Mario Kart 8<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While everyone assumed that Nintendo was just watching the money pile up, the reality was that Mario Kart World<\/em> was initially intended for the original Nintendo Switch. The booster course packs<\/a> that Nintendo released for Mario Kart 8<\/em> were an attempt to buy itself time while it figured out how to approach the next game.<\/p>\n

What took things so long? Well, as it turns out, one-upping the most popular game in your modern catalog isn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that in\u00a0Mario Kart 8 Deluxe<\/em>, 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,\u201d says Mario Kart producer Kosuke Yabuki. \u201cThat\u2019s why, this time, we wanted the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began creating a world map like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nintendo knew that it couldn\u2019t simply create new courses and characters and call it a day. Had that been the case, the sequel would have gone with a more iterative title like Mario Kart 9<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn previous\u00a0Mario Kart\u00a0games, after finishing a course, you’d move on to the next course,\u201d Yabuki continued. \u201cHowever, I thought that with modern technology, being able to seamlessly transition between courses and realize a single, vast world wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. So, with this in mind, we set out to create a new kind of\u00a0Mario Kart.\u201d<\/p>\n

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