It’s been a month since the Switch 2 launched, providing the first chance of getting to the open roads of Mario Kart World. It’s been a great time, both in races and that open road. That free roam provides a good base to start expansion. Not just with new additions to the world, but new ways to interact with it. So, to start Racing Month, I felt it would be good to get concepting some of the ideas I’d like to see happen.
The first of which, as ever, being player created content. There are so many roads across this world, providing many opportunities for players to map out their own circuits or marathons. If possible, I’d want it so that the custom tracks aren’t restricted to start lines contained in named areas to allow for limitless possibilities. Though certain restrictions would still have to be in place.
This would only be a simple editor, where the route a person wants is driven. That marks the roads that will be part of the route, with the game calculating all the off-road limits once complete. Naturally, a race needs to be completed to verify that it all works. Crossover points can be part of the route, and even doubling back, allowing for some crazy chaos tracks to be created, too.
Item boxes can be placed, whether individually or with a preset line. Basic props such as ramps can also be placed, even while driving the route, to allow for some extra pathing over rails or off-road areas. There’d be no such things as floating props, as they can only be placed on the ground with no overlapping of them. For as much as I wouldn’t mind a more complex creator, I feel starting more simple will help ease people into creating tracks.
And more, as at some point I want mode toggles, too. The ability to create new battle modes, whether on a track or arena. Of which I’d also want the ability to create. Choose from a shape of circle or square and resize it however a person wants across any area of the map they choose. Perhaps additional shapes could be added to make irregular arena borders. After all, a battle arena that is nothing but the Crown City car park sounds great fun.
As for the toggles, they would allow for custom rules. Allowing for more than just a standard battle to happen. Whether a mode is team-based or a free-for-all. Whether collection of coins or other objects are in the mode. Whether those objects collected need to be taken to a specific point to count toward the end total. Or a time-based total where holding a collected object will count down to zero for the win.
And even toggling infection-based rules, where a small team has to attack the larger one to bring its members to their side. Or, reversing that, a battle where the larger team has to take down a smaller team with more health. Such toggles can be utilised with others, making it so that coins rather than balloons are what determines health. Or defending team need to get collected objects to a specific point. There’s plenty of ways to provide fun battles, especially now there’s 24 drivers.
Away from player created content, I can see mini adventures being created that start at each of the named areas. One or two characters per area will provide missions that can happen within the confines of that area or go beyond. Missions such as collecting or delivering. Races between the characters. Or points-based missions testing how long drifts can be held. Competitions to earn points for rail grinding and wall riding.
That would mean the characters will no longer freely roam around as they do currently, but perhaps they still could. After all, there’s a load of costumes now. So while the standard outfitted characters continue to drive around, one of the other outfits will represent the character for the missions. Or, those characters wear new outfits, with the missions unlocking those new outfits.
When it comes to new track additions, there’s two ways to do so. The first is additional islands, forging connections through water or bridges. There’s a few places on the map where such islands make sense to be placed. Areas where there’s beaches but not a lot else. The area close to Dino Dino Jungle springs to mind, where sloping terrain down leads to the water for no apparent reason.
The second would be for those that wouldn’t make sense otherwise. Those that naturally wouldn’t fit the world. Such as a pinball machine or a child’s playset, where the drivers are shrunk down to fit the track. The entrances for those would be pipes which would be freely driveable through, which hide the transitions taking place. The pipes into these new areas also provide a few new buildings in the open world, which match the location of the track.
Just like with the tracks of the main world, those within the pipes would also be made to allow exploration off the track. New cups for both Grand Prix and Knockout Tour will become available with each group of additions, of which I see four new tracks being part of those additions. Old tracks that can connect to newer ones will get those connection routes available in versus modes whether local or online.
To end, there’s just one extra thing I’d like to see added. Custom playlists. The regular options for versus mode would be here, with number of tracks, CPU difficulty, and others to choose from. Then, a person would choose all the tracks that a playlist would contain. Such playlist would be assigned to a player’s profile, with three available to be saved at a time. Then, such playlists can be chosen in local versus, or if the person is the host of a friend room online.
What Nintendo do have planned for Mario Kart World is unknown as yet. I would hope they do support it with extra content, which we’re likely to see announced whenever the next Direct is. Whatever those plans are, I hope the quality of the world stays consistent. With some more great remakes of old tracks that fit seamlessly into that world. And great new ones, too.
Images Taken From:
Mario Kart World | Nintendo Switch 2 [Handheld]
