Nintendo has revealed why it decided to name the latest game in the Mario Kart series Mario Kart World rather than Mario Kart 9.
This was revealed in a lengthy new Ask the Developer interview with Mario Kart World’s development team that Nintendo released. In it, the team is directly asked why Mario Kart World was chosen as a title over Mario Kart 9, and producer Kosuke Yabuki gave a very understandable response.
“If the idea had just been to add more courses, then I think we would’ve called it Mario Kart 9,” Yabuki explained. “But, that wasn’t our approach this time. We wanted to take the series to the next level. So, we decided to drop the numbering this time and go with a completely new title, Mario Kart World. So, we’d already added “Mario Kart World” to the concept art from the early stages of development.”
Mario Kart World’s namesake draws from its tracks being part of one large open world. The game even features a Free Roam mode where players can drive around and complete challenges off-track. Yabuki said that he “thought that with modern technology, being able to seamlessly transition between courses and realize a single, vast world wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility,” so this concept, and the name Mario Kart World, were present from very early on in development.
The decision to go open world and implement systems like dynamic weather was a massive undertaking for the development team. “The sheer volume of work required to prepare all the art needed to show time and weather changes in a seamless world… We were under no illusion,” art director Masaaki Ishikawa admits later on in the interview. “We were even on the verge of giving up on it at one point.”
Historically, Mario Kart games have either referenced the platform they are on or what number game they are in the series in their title. Mario Kart World joins the likes of Mario Kart: Double Dash, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, and Mario Kart Tour in bucking that trend.
Mario Kart World will launch alongside Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5. If you want to get the game when it comes out, check out GameSpot’s Nintendo Switch 2 preorder guide.
