When Mario Kart World was first revealed, many expected it to be none-other than Mario Kart 9; however, when the game was officially announced, we learned the game would actually be Mario Kart World instead. Why is that?
Well, Nintendo has provided us an answer in one of their new Q&A sessions about the game, and the answer isn't as surprising as you might think.
It turns out that the game was being called Mario Kart World from the very start, because the developers wanted to be different. If they were simply making a new Mario Kart title with a new set of stages as they have in the past, then the name Mario Kart 9 would've been more fitting. With Mario Kart World on the other hand, they wanted to take the series in a new direction, which was that of an open-world racer. Thus including World in the title made a lot more sense, and they continued to roll with it throughout development.
Honestly this isn't too out of the ordinary for Nintendo and the Mario Kart series, as the series wasn't even numbered until the release of Mario Kart 7 back in 2011. Before then each title was named based on "what it was" and that typically meant including the name of the console within the title. Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart DS, and Mario Kart Wii are prime examples of this, while titles like Mario Kart Double Dash emphasized the new unique mechanics of the game; exactly what Mario Kart World is doing today.
Mario Kart World launches exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5th 2025.
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