How Mario Kart World’s weight classes work

Weight classes in Mario Kart World work much like they do in Mario Kart 8, in that they determine how a kart performs. With no kart customization in World, though, a character’s weight class is the sole influencing factor on your kart’s stats. There’s no quick-and-easy way to see who belongs in what category, and since every character can use every kart, it’s easy to miss some of the stat nuances if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

Below, we explain how weight classes work in Mario Kart World, the difference between lighter and heavier sizes, and which characters belong in which weight class.

How weight class works in Mario Kart World

Reddit user VikeStep first posted a chart with character weights in April 2025. There was no way to verify the information at the time, but after comparing it to the stats you can see in Mario Kart World, it turns out VikeStep was completely right. Nintendo used a scale from 1.0 to probably 4.0, in keeping with how World handles its other stats, to determine character size. There are no official weight classes, but you can still broadly group characters together as very light, light, and so on, just like with Mario Kart 8.

Every character can use every kart in Mario Kart World, and a character’s weight class determines their kart’s handling, top speed, and acceleration. You can’t customize kart parts in Mario Kart World like you could in Mario Kart 8, so weight class is the only factor determining a kart’s stats.

Character size influences:

In other words, basically everything. Bear in mind that the weight value shown on the kart stat screen is for the kart, not the character, and shows how easy it is to knock the kart around. Knowing a character’s actual weight value doesn’t matter, though, since you can see the affect their size has on the kart details screen.

Mario’s Rally Kart, for example, has better acceleration than Bowser’s, but slightly worse handling than Toad’s. If you’re Rosalina and boost into a monster truck driven by Toad, you’ll likely be able to knock him for a loop, whereas Yoshi driving into Donkey Kong isn’t quite the equivalent of driving a dune buggy into a brick wall, but it’s close.

The value Nintendo assigned for character size remains the same for each of these groups, so you won’t find any variation between characters in, for example, the medium group. You’re free to pick any character in that class without having to worry about performance variations.

All Mario Kart World weight classes

Similar to Mario Kart 8, you can divide Mario Kart World’s weight classes into three major groups — light, medium, and heavy — with several variations in those for a total of eight groups.

Below, we’ll explain a bit about all eight weight classifications in Mario Kart World, plus show you a running list of all characters in each weight class. As of this writing, we’re missing data on Swoop, Rocky Wrench, Conkdor, Fish Bone, and Cataquack, but we’ll update this guide once we have their data.

These are the lightest characters, the ones whose karts will always have the best acceleration and handling – and the slowest top speeds. They’re also the easiest to push around on the track.

These characters are slightly harder to knock aside and have acceleration that’s just a little worse than their featherweight counterparts. Otherwise, they perform in much the same way.

Lightweight characters can reach higher maximum speeds compared to their diminutive counterparts, though they still have a lower speed cap. On the bright side, they recover from accidents more quickly than characters in the heavier classes.

This small sub-category includes racers who perform better than most light characters and are just a smidgeon slower than standard medium characters.

These are your all-rounders, the characters with solid speed, good acceleration, and reliable handling. They might get outpaced by heavier characters with faster top speeds, but their ease of use and faster recovery times make them competitive anyway.

Medium-heavy characters are where you start to notice differences in kart handling and how quickly you can reach your top speed. They’re excellent choices when you want to start experimenting with something more challenging.

Heavy characters can reach higher top speeds at the cost of worse handling and slower acceleration. Playing them effectively takes solid knowledge of a course and knowing when to brake, drift, and boost to avoid moments where you have to build up to your maximum speed again.

Very heavy characters are the fastest of the bunch, but they’re also the hardest to control and take a long time to reach their top speed.

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