It’s time to speculate widely!

With the Switch 2 likely to launch in 2025, a new Mario Kart is probably around the corner. It’s been ten years since the release of Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U, which is a lot of potential development time. So, my expectations are unreasonably high! I don’t think the recent DLC for Mario Kart 8 will have drained too many resources either since its content was primarily drawn from Mario Kart Tour. But it does raise the question, what will Mario Kart 9 be?

At its core, it will be the Mario Kart of Switch 2 and the first new entry in a decade. That’s arguably enough and will definitely make me very happy. But it will likely be more than that. Every Mario Kart entry has introduced a new mechanic or feature to the series:

• Mario Kart (SNES) was the original entry.
• Mario Kart 64 (N64) introduced fully 3D graphics.
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA) made it portable.
• Mario Kart: Double Dash (GC) had two-person carts.
• Mario Kart DS (DS) made the fully 3D games portable.
• Mario Kart Wii (Wii) introduced motion controls and tricks.
• Mario Kart 7 (3DS) had customisable karts, gliding, and underwater sections.
• Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) had hover cars.

So, what will Mario Kart 9 have? It’s not an easy question. All the obvious additions have already been introduced.

There could be an expanded character roster, perhaps a few more non-Mario characters. That would be cool, but I’m not sure it’s enough. I don’t think character selection is as important to racing games as it is to, say, fighting games like Smash Bros. The tracks and Karts are probably more impactful. And the new features of Mario Kart 9 need to be impactful. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch) is the biggest Mario Kart ever. Across two different waves of DLC, one for the Wii U and one for Switch, 8 Deluxe has accumulated 96 tracks. Several times more than any other game. It can actually be quite difficult to choose one. Assuming that Mario Kart 9 doesn’t come pre-packaged with 96 tracks (and has to accumulate them through DLC), it needs something big to top Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Especially since backwards compatibility on Switch 2 could make them direct competitors.

They could reintroduce the multi-person Karts from Double Dash (GC). In that game, each kart had two characters. One character drove while the other handled the weapons. In multi-player, you could even have two players on the same kart. It was an awesome idea but hasn’t been used since. Bringing it back, perhaps as an optional feature, would help distinguish 9 from 8 Deluxe. Using multiple Switch 2s for multiplayer could take it even further than Double Dash. It could allow the co-pilot/weapons player to aim more carefully (using their second screen). There could also be a navigation feature in which the co-pilot has to find a path through sprawling city tracks with no clear path. That last idea is perhaps a little over the top (and more suited to the Wii U’s asynchronous multi-player) but not entirely unprecedented. Kirby’s Air Ride (GC) had a battle mode in which players had to run around the map (on foot) looking for vehicles and weapons. It would be cool, however unlikely, to have something similar. Reintroducing features like these (two-person karts and Kirby’s battle mode) would also make an expanded character roster more impactful.

Still, most of those ideas feel more like optional battle modes or side events than core features. The actual racing is more important and also more difficult to innovate. But there are new things you could do. Off the top of my head, there could be paintings that teleport you (a staple of the Mario series) or full-blown planes and submarines instead of gliders and underwater karts. In my wildest dreams, it will have a VR mode, but that’s probably asking a little much of Switch 2. Although it could connect to Mario Kart: Home Circuit in some way. Regardless, I’m sure that Nintendo has something amazing planned. It will probably be something that none of us expected, but that, in retrospect, makes perfect sense. They’ve probably been testing a lot of ideas and found something great.

The real question is, what will they do for Mario Kart 10?

-Dexter