The Wide World of Dirt

With the Nintendo Direct fully unveiling the Switch 2 and presumably Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s successor, I found some time to compile a wish list for the newest Mario Kart game.

I should note before going any further that this piece will not be covering any retro track predictions, so look out for that soon! I have some pretty neat ideas for which retros we might see in this next game.

I’ll be tackling the following features: Game Modes, Gameplay, Game Mechanics, Characters, and Items.

Since there’s little time to spare, let’s jump right into Game Modes.

Game Modes

Our obvious choices will be coming back for the next entry in the series.

Grand Prix, VS Race, Time Trial, and Battle will all be present in the newest Mario Kart in single-player mode.

A number of ideas have floated around online about modes to add to the game, including changing how Mario Kart is structured as a whole by turning it into an open-world game similar to Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing.

While I wouldn’t rule that idea out as something Nintendo would do, I’m not particularly thrilled with the prospect of that myself because I like Mario Kart how it is now.

Conversely, I would like to introduce a Mission Mode to the game. Reviving this feature from MKDS would show players the ropes in terms of how to handle the karts as well as sharpening any item skills like green shell aiming.

Since it’s clear through the trailer that karts will have just a single racer, I would love for a DoubleDash mode be included in the game.

Call me a boomer or whatever, but you haven’t known chaos in Mario Kart until you’ve played through DoubleDash. With the possibility of 24 players in online lobbies now apparent, that means we could have up to 12 pairs of racers.

Outside of making it a single-player mode, you could include the Co-Op mode from the GameCube game where two players control one kart: one character drives while the other handles items.

This brings some versatility to the game that we haven’t had in many years and could generate online lobbies of their own. As great as it would be to take Co-Op DoubleDash online, I genuinely don’t think that’s possible unless Nintendo’s servers get significantly stronger with the Switch 2 and reduce lag.

As for multiplayer, all of the modes I mentioned previously would be included save for Time Trial and Mission modes.

I alluded to this a bit earlier when talking about DoubleDash, but I would love to see online racing be entirely revamped.

From my time playing Forza Motorsport 7 on the XBox One, I developed a fondness for how Turn 10 handled their lobbies.

Each class of car got its own lobby, so I would do the same for Mario Kart.

If your heart yearns for racing people on 50cc, you should have the ability to do that. If you’re more of a 200cc head, then by all means, you should be able to race with people at breakneck speeds all over the world.

The fact that online currently is separated by two things — Worldwide and Regional — is plain silly on Nintendo’s part. When the Booster Course Pass dropped, that would’ve been a good time to introduce new online game modes.

Matchmaking must improve in the series’ next installment. With all due respect, someone like me at max VR should not be getting matched up against a person that’s around 1000 VR. That just can’t happen.

It doesn’t help less experienced players get better at the game by playing higher-level players that leave a majority of them in the digital dust, so let’s have a system more attuned to each players’ VR level to setup better matchmaking.

In addition to class lobbies and better matchmaking, custom lobbies would be awesome where players set the parameters for items that can be used.

I would like the same aspects I’ve described for online racing to carry over to Battle mode as well, allowing players to pick which game they want to play rather than being at the whims of what everyone in the lobby chooses.

Speaking of Battle Mode, most of the modes from prior games ended up in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so I’d just port all of those over to the new game. Everything will be fine if the game comes with real battle tracks upon release.

Gameplay

In this section, I’ll be focusing on how the karts race.

While MK8DX remains an easy game to grasp due to its handling model, I’d like Nintendo to take a step back and return to the twitchy nature of DoubleDash‘s control scheme.

Essentially, each kart would have a much more active suspension than the karts you would find in MK8DX, making turning (and drifting) a bit more difficult to grasp right away.

I want to make sure there are still measures in place to help newer players along, which is why Auto-Accelerate and Guided Steering would return for this game.

Some people don’t come into Mario Kart with the skills necessary to 3-Star each Cup and get every unlockable in the game without driving assists, so it’s important to have those in the game.

Remember, just because a lot of us adults play it, doesn’t meant that we should solely determine how the game is played. This game is for the next generation of Mario Kart players too, and it would be irresponsible to not consider new players.

I would also add a couple of new gameplay elements to race selection.

Chief among them is an enduro mode where racers can decided how long they want their races to be, whether it be a timed race or a lap amount.

If you’re like me and wondered what a 30-minute race at Shroom Ridge would look like, look no further than the Enduro Mode.

In addition to Mirror mode, I’d love to see a Reverse mode be added to the game, something originally teased to be part of Mario Kart: DoubleDash.

Personally, I feel like Mirror mode has run its course and could be removed outright, but that move could anger long-time fans, meaning they’d balk on buying the game. For the sake of everyone’s peace, I’d still include it.

200cc should also have a Mirror and Reverse mode, but 200cc isn’t the cap for speed in this game as we’d move up to 250cc.

Since I intend to touch on this more when discussing retro track selections, I’ll just say that I imagine Nintendo will create (and recreate) these tracks with 250cc in mind, making them plenty wide enough for all 24 racers to make mistakes and regain their footing rather than letting all hell break loose.

As for Nitro tracks, an idea I’ve heard from a few people is that Wonder Flowers could open up optional pathways that might not be visible/available to other players, which sounds great in theory.

I just don’t know how you pull that off if you’re Nintendo, but it could lead to some great Wile E. Coyote content when one player drives through a rock while the player behind them crashes into the rock.

That said, I loved the ? cloud incorporated into Yoshi’s Island. I wouldn’t be opposed to a mechanic similar to that, but it’s all about execution. I just wonder how they’d be able to make that a regular gameplay mechanic without it getting relatively annoying and stale. Maybe moderation is key.

Last thing about Nitro courses: I enjoy Tour courses. If the red arrow mechanic returns in this game, I have no problem following directions and a map.

Where I get peeved is that those courses remove some of the beauty of Mario Kart‘s traditional gameplay.

What I mean is, the best part of the last lap is how littered the track is with discarded items, making the track a minefield and forcing the player to pay closer attention to the surroundings.

The fluid track design is super cool at times, and I really enjoy it. That said, I do not want them to be the majority of tracks we see in the new game. It is a good gambit, but just don’t overdo it. Classic Mario Kart must survive in the next era.

Now that we know 24 racers can be involved in one race, I’d love to see the introduction of an eliminator-style game where a certain number of players are forced out of the race after every lap until one victor remains.

In a game like Mario Kart where item play and tight lines largely determine your placement at the finish line, a mode like this could really shake up LAN parties and online play like no other mode has in the past.

Game Mechanics

This section will be brief because Nintendo has effectively explored most methods of travel in previous games.

Gliding, driving underwater, and even anti-gravity should all see their return in this game, but I hope that anti-grav will be more intuitive in this game. I want the screen to stay grounded when I drive on a wall or upside down.

The only thing Mario Kart has neglected to explore is truly flying and hovering like in Diddy Kong Racing. Could I see them implementing that in this game? Probably not, but I would be interested in how they would approach a flying and hovering portion/course.

Here’s a small change that’ll make life better: double item slot where you can swap your items, as God intended.

It would also be nice to click out of a continuous item at your leisure. If I could click a button and get rid of my Golden Dash or Bullet Bill because I am approaching an item box, my gameplay experience would go up exponentially.

Coins should return. They are a good mechanic, and if you think otherwise, it’s a skill issue. Collecting coins is often rather easy, especially at the rate they respawn. It’s 2025. If you still hate coins, that’s tough.

I would prefer if we didn’t see the coin item come back in its current form as part of the item roulette, but I definitely don’t want to see its current form be part of the item roulette for 2nd to 24th.

You don’t know real pain until you’re drawing a bead on the leader at the last set of boxes prior to pulling a banana and a coin. We should avoid these moments because they’re extremely silly.

The Boo item should go back to not being affected by off-road driving. If the player is ghosted out, why would driving on grass slow them down?

Going back to coins, folks floated the idea that there could be a gasoline component to this game, and I’m going to be brutally honest: nobody wants to do pit stops in Mario Kart.

Oftentimes in most racing games, people don’t want to do pit stops. Please don’t implement that, Nintendo.

I wouldn’t mind removing the coin cap of 10 coins to allow for higher speeds. This could bring fun wrinkles to the end of races where someone motors by from having the most coins at the end.

Not only that, you could make the kart heavier if it’s carrying more coins/fuel, making aggressive bumping by heavier characters less effective (or perhaps more effective if they’re so inclined.)

I would also love to see a tiered coin spill from specific items. Getting hit by a banana, getting hit by a blue shell, and falling off the track should not cost the same amount of coins.

Make bananas and green shells worth one coin, red shells and falling off track two coins, and blue shells and Bob-Ombs worth three coins. It’s a fairer split.

Lastly, if a player uses a Mushroom and bumps into another player, the Mushroom user should take the other player’s item just like in DoubleDash. It might be needlessly cruel, but for many, that’s the name of the game.

Characters

YouTubers keep making videos about the character roster for this game, and y’all keep clicking on it. I don’t understand why this is such a unique topic worthy of serious discussion.

Everyone from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe should be there as well as every other game in the series. Yes, I am including Tour (but not Arcade GP. Not because I don’t want to, but because Nintendo avoids acknowledging those games.)

Crossovers characters are likely here to stay, and we should have even more.

Kirby, Sonic, Olimar, Zelda, Samus, Star Fox, Captain Falcon, Professor E. Gadd, Mr. Game & Watch, and Ness should all be on the shortlist, but I fall short of saying that each character needs a home track.

The beauty of these crossover characters is that they aren’t playing on their home turf and are guests in the Mario Kart series. As such, Nintendo don’t have to include a crossover track for every game series they pull from, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t want a WarioWare or a Metroid track.

Finally, they could just group the characters better. Make all of the Koopalings a submenu when players select Bowser Jr. Put Mario and any applicable alts for him (Metal Mario, Gold Mario, Shadow Mario, Dr. Mario, Flower Mario, etc.) in a submenu when he is selected. This is not hard; y’all already do it for Yoshi.

Costumes are a great way to help players personalize their characters and make their online presence more individualized, so let’s add them into the game.

I would also be open to suggestions on characters to add, but making this the most built-out Mario Kart for the launch of this new console could only be a good thing in my mind.

Items

For the final part of this wish list, we’re talking about what we’re going to hit each other with.

Here’s a quick list of items from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that I will be adding and won’t be litigating any further:

Banana, Triple Banana, Green Shell, Triple Green Shell, Red Shell, Triple Red Shell, Bob-Omb, Blue (Spiny) Shell, Mushroom, Triple Mushroom, Golden Dash, Bullet Bill, Lightning Bolt, Star, Boomerang Flower, and Boo.

The Fire Flower stinks in its current form. 10 shots is too many. I would prefer if it was closer to a hopping wave of flames like in DoubleDash. Having 10 controlled shots is far too many. If there’s no compromise, get rid of it.

Piranha Plant is awful. What good is this item if it won’t protect me from other items?

It needs to make other drivers pay for even driving around you or throwing items at you, giving you speed while taking over the road. Make it like having a star, and if it bites an opponent with a star or mushroom(s), the Piranha Plant could ingest it to propel your kart forward. Otherwise, get rid of it.

Super Horn is a great item, but it could be better. If it is powerful enough to blow up a Spiny Shell, it should be powerful enough to block a Bob-Omb blast. It should be powerful enough to reject a Lightning Bolt if timed properly. These are easy problems to fix.

The Feather is an item I have thought about for a while, and here’s my spin on improving it: you turn it into a physical item that falls on the track in front of the player that draws it and has a glider-ramp tip.

It keeps the spirit of the item the same, giving players a chance to briefly take to the skies to perform a shortcut and allowing them to attack from the air if they so choose. Otherwise, keep it in Battle Mode in its current form.

Let’s move on to Mario Kart Tour‘s new items.

I don’t like the idea of the Double Bob-Omb, especially with them circling your kart because the risk-reward ratio feels too risky for the player and everyone around it.

Ice Flower seems really cool and balanced, so I’d be fine adding it in its current form. Perhaps they could use its three ice balls as an example for renovating the Fire Flower item.

The Heart stunk in DoubleDash, and it still stinks in Tour. Hard pass.

On the contrary, I have always loved the Egg. That might be due to my affinity for Yoshi, but it’s certainly a great chaos item. It spits out three items at random upon making contact, which could change the entire complexion of a race.

I love it, and I would really enjoy its inclusion in this game, especially with 24 players hitting the track at once. Having a Birdo Egg is redundant, though.

Bringing back the Bowser Shell would be a priority for me because it creates nothing but chaos no matter where it goes. It is a powerful item that can swiftly change the fate of your race, which is why it needs to return.

Rounding out the GameCube items is the Giant Banana, which separates into three regular bananas once contacted. This is a must-have item for the next game because of its range and cartoonish nature. We like a little whimsy.

I am not a huge fan of either the Mushroom or Banana Cannons, so I’ll have to pass on them.

The Coin Box is a solid idea, but I’d rather they just allocate more coins to players depending on their position. If 1st gets two coins, then why does 10th also get just two coins? A more intuitive Mario Kart is a better Mario Kart.

Since we’re upping the ante to 24 players, Nintendo could set thresholds for certain position groups: 1-4 get two coins, 5-8 get three, 9-12 get four, and 13-24 get five. That way, getting a coin of some kind isn’t a death sentence like it is now.

Dash Rings, Bob-Omb Cannons, and Giga Bob-Omb are a no-go for me. I just think they have a clunky application to a console game.

The Super Bell rules and should’ve been in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for sure. This must be added to the next game.

I have always had an appreciation for the Super Leaf and would love to see it return to the next Mario Kart game.

Throwing it back to Mario Kart Wii, the Mega Mushroom remains one of my favorite items from that game, so I’d be heavily in favor of its return.

The POW Block can be cool, but I don’t like that your item gets dropped even if you nail the trick. If you nail the trick, the reward should be not getting slowed down AND keeping your items unlike your less fortunate competitors. Assuming that could be negotiated, I’m fine with it coming back in this game.

Many, many, many people downright despise the Thunder Cloud, but I love it. In a lobby of 24 people, imagine the games of hot potato breaking out while trying to interact with different track elements and avoid items from other players.

For it to shrink the owner of the item for as long as it does is a bit cruel. Make the countdown somewhere in the 8-10 second bracket while making recovery time 5-6 seconds to make it a bit more fair. Players should lose other items just like they would in the event of a standard Lightning Bolt strike.

A real deep cut is about to be discussed, so I hope you’re ready: the Fake Item Block should make its grand return in this game.

Also known as The FIB, this item tricked people everywhere in Mario Kart 64 because it looked so similar to the game’s item block. I want this same dynamic to return in this game rather than the red one from DoubleDash and Wii.

I hate the Blooper. There is nothing worse than being in 5th-8th and drawing this item late in a race. It just isn’t helpful to the person that triggers it in a meaningful way and only punishes new players that haven’t mastered the tracks.

The final thing I’ll talk about here is the Frenzy function from Tour. I wouldn’t mind seeing this return, but I would almost prefer if it stayed in the Elimination mode I proposed. Though it could be too chaotic for standard gameplay, I see frenzies being an interesting wrinkle added to Battle modes.

That was a lot, but I hope you stuck it out with me to the end. If you’d like to keep up with the rest of these predictions as I tackle the Retro Tracks, don’t be afraid to subscribe to our blog by putting in your email at the bottom of this page.

(Top Photo Credit: Business Wire)