Mario Kart World is one of the most joyfully chaotic games I’ve ever played

In Mario Kart World you can play as one of the cows from Moo Moo Meadows.

Honestly, I don’t really know what more I need to say about the game. Do you really need to know more? You can play as one of the cows from Moo Moo Meadows.

I’ve been wondering for a few years now exactly how Nintendo planned to top Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which is not only the best-selling Nintendo Switch game by some distance, but also the ultimate Mario Kart game, packed with tracks, racers, and features.

I half-expected a Super Smash Bros-style kart racer in which Nintendo added in a ton of tracks and racers from other properties. It just goes to show how small-minded I am, then; Mario Kart World doesn’t just expand the roster (to include one of the cows from Moo Moo Meadows), it also throws the very essence of Mario Kart wide open to turn the formula completely on its head.

Mario Kart World is still unmistakably Mario Kart, don’t get me wrong. One well-placed green shell can send you from first place to fifth inches from the finish line; bob-ombs and bananas can come out of nowhere to ruin everything; tracks are beautifully detailed and filled with deceptively adorable hazards.

But with a few simple changes, Mario Kart World has suddenly become the most exciting new entry in the series’ long history.

The real headline, I suppose, is that Mario Kart World is largely an open-world game. Like Forza Horizon 4 with less Scottish people and more fire-breathing lizards. I didn’t get to experience this particular element of the game, as our preview time was more focused on good-old fashioned racing - but even this has been completely overhauled.

The big change is that the usual closed circuit races are now a journey from one place to another. That is to say, instead of three or four laps around the same course, you’re largely experiencing markedly different laps in the same race. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe played with this idea in the past, but it feels much better realised here.

There’s less opportunity to exploit the same shortcut or trick three times in a row in any one race, for one thing. It also means every race feels that much more epic, whether you’re sliding up the tail of a dinosaur, or drifting through a market full of Shy Guys. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe looked and ran beautifully, and Mario Kart World manages to up the ante even further.

Nintendo has also decided that 12 player races weren't quite chaotic enough, and has doubled that number to 24 players. Suddenly, the brutal scrum to break out of the pack and get ahead feels even more vital in the first few moments of a race, and getting to first only to fall foul of a blue shell and stumble back in with the crowd makes it all the harder to climb back out and get on top again. It’s thrilling stuff, even if I couldn’t apply the same brand of salty sailor talk I usually reserve for Mario Kart, given I was playing with fellow professionals.

Karts also feel noticeably weightier in Mario Kart World. Drifting round corners feels like it takes much more precision, and performing tricks off a ramp to get an all-important speed boost requires better timing. This could just be because I’m a little less used to this game’s rhythms after an ungodly amount of time spent in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, mind you.

While drifting has, of course, always been a staple of Mario Kart, World lets you hop onto certain rails and grind along, Sonic The Hedgehog style, for even bigger speed boosts. I found pulling these grinds off way trickier and infinitely more precarious, but I’m keen to see just how much an edge mastering this new skill will give players.

It’s pretty clear that I’ve barely scratched the surface with Mario Kart World. But if Nintendo has been able to create a brand-new Mario Kart game with infinitely more chaotic gameplay, bigger, better tracks, and a genuine world to explore on top of all the usual joys of kart racing, the Nintendo Switch 2 could well be kicking off with an all-timer.