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😬 Mario Kart World began as a Nintendo Switch game but faced technical challenges, including potential cuts to visuals, resolution, and frame rate
🤔 The team considered moving the game to the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2020, which provided a "ray of hope" for realizing their creative vision
👀 Development shifted to the Switch 2 based on provisional specs, with the team later receiving working development units
💪 The Switch 2's enhanced capabilities allowed for richer visuals, smoother performance, and a more immersive world, making it a highlight of the console's launch on June 5
Nintendo has shared some fascinating insights into Mario Kart World's development and admitted that the Nintendo Switch 2 was a "ray of hope" for the team.
In 'Ask the Developer Vol. 18', programming director Kenta Sato reveals Mario Kart World started life as a Nintendo Switch title, but the team faced numerous technical challenges.
"When we were developing for the Nintendo Switch system, it was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return," Sato said. "We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 fps in some cases. It was a tough situation."
When asked whether the team simply gave up on making the game run on Nintendo Switch, producer Kosuke Yabuki said the team ended up "kicking the can down the road in terms of what to give up on" and that the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass was released to give the team more time to continue development.
"That's when the conversation of moving it to the Nintendo Switch 2 system came up, and this suddenly opened up a bunch of possibilities on what we could do. It was truly a ray of hope," Yabuki said.
The decision to develop the game for Nintendo Switch 2 was first pitched in 2020, but Sato admits that the team only had a rough idea of the system's expected specs. "It wasn't until a bit later that we actually received working development units. Until then, we just had to proceed with development based on provisional estimates," Sato said.
Sato also shared that when developing Mario Kart World for the Nintendo Switch, the team worried about whether they could find "the right balance between planning and performance" and even though the Switch system's performance is "sufficient for developing different kinds of games" if Nintendo wanted to include "everything we wanted to in this game's vast world then it wouldn't have run at 60fps and would have suffered from constant framerate drops."
When the team knew it was releasing the game on Nintendo Switch 2, Sato said "we expected our worries to evaporate all at once. I remember being overjoyed when I discovered we could express even more than we'd originally set out to."
Art director Masaaki Ishikawa echoed Sato's sentiments about the Switch 2, and said "I also felt like it was outweighed by the sense of relief. From the beginning, the designers were saying they wanted to make the art richer, so I thought we could achieve that now. For example, team members who were creating the terrain in the scenery were really happy because they could now place more trees, which were key to giving the world a more natural look.”
Mario Kart World is arguably the highlight of the Nintendo Switch 2 launch games releasing on June 5, and Nintendo recently shared why it decided to bundle the game with its new console.
Nintendo also detailed how 12 existing Switch games will be enhanced thanks to free Switch 2 upgrades but admitted it incorrectly listed VRR support for the console when its in docked mode. Variable refresh rate will only work in handheld mode, though an update could fix that in the future.
Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
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