Mario Kart World is rotting on Switch 2 yet Nintendo drops free updates for less popular games

Mario Kart World was the game the Nintendo Switch 2 launched with, but unfortunately not everyone was a fan.

The criticisms were fair as we’d all grown accustomed to the sheer perfection of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Plenty of characters and loads of tracks, you can’t ask for much more from a Mario Kart game.

One year later, the Nintendo Switch 2 has amassed several more first-party exclusives, with some highlights being Kirby Air Ride, Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream and of course Pokemon Pokopia.

However after an entire year of waiting, Mario Kart World is still a shadow of what we got in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Sure, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but one of the few content updates we’ve had for the game didn't even add new content, it just rearranged some of the tracks in the Knockout Tour mode.

So how come Mario Kart World is being left out to dry, then all of a sudden Mario Tennis Fever is getting a new Mario Galaxy-themed update? It just doesn’t make any sense, but then again so few of Nintendo’s decisions ever do.

To speculate, it seems safe to say that DLC is definitely on the way for Mario Kart World. It’d be foolish if there wasn’t a plan for some.

Nintendo has somewhat driven themselves into a corner though, no pun intended.

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Mario Kart World’s selling-point has been its biggest drawback

Mario Kart World’s whole shtick was an open-world racing game. Courses aren’t laid out like traditional grand-prixs, as you’re crossing the country in order to get to the next track.

Free-roam was an understandable, but lacklustre, addition as why would you want to race around tracks with no other racers there?

Having the game built around a world-map is going to make adding new tracks a pain, because where are they even going to be set?

They’ll either have to be jammed into the existing one, or a brand-new continent will need to be added. If it’s the latter that’s probably why the DLC is taking so long.

There’s no excuse for no new characters though. Fans were convinced that new appearances for Donkey Kong and Pauline would come upon the release of Donkey Kong Bananza, but no luck there.

We’re also missing any Nintendo crossover characters. Samus-Aran and the Vi-O-La motorcycle from Metroid Prime 4: Beyond would have made for an excellent addition to the cast for instance. Even Miis aren’t currently supported yet, which is baffling considering they’ve been regulars since Mario Kart Wii.

There’s clearly more to come for Mario Kart World. Nintendo said as much when it announced the remixed Knockout Tours, but there’s no ETA on when we might see it.

Knowing Nintendo we’ll all forget about the game until a random Nintendo Direct in 2027, when all of a sudden a new booster pack of courses/characters will be announced after everyone’s moved on.