Mario Kart World (Switch 2, 2025)

The latest entry in Mario’s kart-racing jamboree is a rollicking good time, and also a somewhat frustrating one. Mario Kart World is the best the actual driving and control has ever felt, and all the new maneuvers Nintendo has added this time around make it the most expressive and freeing in the series. But as the game gets bigger, with more players and entire modes that feel like they are meant to showcase the multi-track-spanning open world at the expense of more condensed races on bespoke tracks, playing the game requires you to get past some growing pains. It’s more experimental than it might seem at a glance, and for that, it deserves its flowers for injecting some really cool ideas into a 30-year-old franchise.

With 24-player races that let you ride on just about any surface you can reasonably get your wheels on, World is the most chaotic Mario Kart has ever been. This means there are plenty of incredible plays and happy accidents, but also a fair share of upsets that make the game feel lopsided and unfair. There are so many players on the track at once that you can spend several minutes of a race doing alright, just driving along your designated path, then suddenly face an onslaught of item-based attacks that will send you back a dozen places in the blink of an eye.

This all then needs to be weighed against the new inclusion of a vast, open world, around which you can freely drive, finding bonus items, mini-missions, hidden secrets, and so many coins. It’s the biggest shake-up the Mario Kart series has seen in decades, but time will tell if it sticks as a favorite racing game.