Mario Kart World is huge, featuring a ton of new and old courses scattered across an interconnected open world. The biggest selling point, however, has to be the massive roster of playable characters, which ranges from obvious choices like Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach to obscure enemies like Super Mario Sunshine’s Cataquacks and stage hazards like the grazing Moo Moos from previous entries in the series. We’ve learned a lot about Mario Kart World over the last few weeks, but one question remains: How do you unlock all of these weird little guys?
While it’s true Mario Kart World might come preloaded with pages and pages of playable characters available from the outset, that doesn’t feel very Nintendo to me. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate may have featured the largest cast in the fighting game series’ decades-long history, but we were still forced to unlock them one by one over hours and hours of playtime. Nintendo isn’t afraid to make players work for content, even if such methods can feel frustratingly archaic in the modern day. On the other hand, let’s be honest with ourselves and admit we all got a little excited every time we saw that “A new foe has appeared! Challenger approaching” screen.
As usual, the internet has some theories about Mario Kart World’s unlocking process. A fun-sounding-but-probably-bogus comment posted to 4chan on April 2 claimed players would be able to add new racers — specifically mentioning butterflies and the Angry Sun as potential options — to the character select screen by photographing them in the game’s Free Roam mode. Polygon attempted to verify this rumor while attending the Switch 2 reveal event but was unable to confirm its details.
Mario Kart World also features an item that summons Kamek, who uses his Magikoopa tricks to transform opposing racers into random characters. Some of the gameplay we’ve seen shows this transformation accompanied by a pop-up that might be telling the player the character they’ve become is now unlocked. And finally, one of the Treehouse Live presentations earlier this month included a brief look at the game’s map that appeared to indicate the presence of free-roaming NPCs. It’s possible one method of unlocking new racers is by meeting up with them in the world and perhaps completing a challenge akin to those shown during today’s Nintendo Direct.
It’s clear the bevy of racers is a huge draw for Mario Kart World, and Nintendo’s silence on how they get unlocked is possibly a sign there’s something hiding below the surface to which we’re not yet privy. It’s just a matter of whether or not the developers say more before the game launches alongside the Switch 2 on June 5 or if that day will be a mad rush of learning on the fly.
