Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

Summary

From the very beginning, the goal for Mario Kart World was ambitious. A follow-up to the Switch’s (and Wii U’s) best-selling game, one that steadily grew over the years, World’s original concept focused on two key changes: doubling the amount of racers, and creating a connected, open world for players to explore. It was so big that, early on in development for the original Switch, the team was having a hard time making it work on the hardware, and eventually it shifted to become the main launch title for the more powerful Switch 2.But even outside of technical issues, those changes meant a fundamental rethink of many of Mario Kart’s core elements. “We knew when we came up with this idea that it really would be a big change for the series,” says producer Kosuke Yabuki, “but we had no idea at the time how many people, how much time, and how much effort that would require to actually achieve it.”The most obvious change is right there in the title: it’s the world. Instead of a series of individual racetracks, all of Mario Kart World’s courses take place on the same landmass, connected by a series of routes. The game isn’t set in an existing version of the Mushroom Kingdom, but instead a brand-new location that has been designed from the ground-up around the idea of racing.“As you travel through this world, you will see things that remind you of the Mushroom Kingdom,” Yabuki explains. “Elements like the question mark blocks or warp pipes. In terms of world design, I would say this world was designed for Mario Kart World. If you look at the height of a mountain, or the length of a desert, those were all things that we decided specifically for this title.”According to Yabuki – who previously worked on both Mario Kart 7 and 8, and served as producer on the Switch fighter Arms – unlike many open worlds, the game wasn’t designed to be a recreation of a realistic or believable place. He says that “we have to think about not simply recreating real-world patterns in terms of a t...