Mario Kart 7 may be only one numerical entry behind the most recent game in the series, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t old as shit. In fact, it was first released on the Nintendo 3DS eleven years ago, in December 2011.
With both the game and the system it was made for dead in the water for most people, it’s a surprise we’re talking about it at all outside the confines of some kind of retro or series-ranking post. It’s even weirder that we’re talking about it because it just got an update.
The game’s previous patch—which was also its first—dropped in May 2012, and did the following:
Ver. 1.1 (Released May 15, 2012)
- An update has been made available to eliminate shortcut exploits in the Wuhu Loop, Maka Wuhu, and Bowser Castle 1 tracks when they are played in the Online Multiplayer Mode.
- The update is required to play the game’s Online Multiplayer Modes. However, the tracks in Single-Player and Local Multiplayer Modes will not be affected by this update. Players can continue to play in these modes without installing the update.
The game’s second patch was released on December 13, 2022, and did...well, Nintendo won’t specify, only saying in general terms:
Several issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.
That’s nice! For anyone still playing a game that was released over a decade ago. And which went 10 years, 6 months and 28 days between patches. That is 3,864 days.
I wonder if any of those “issues” were related to glitches that have been exploited by speedrunners for all those years, especially since the last patch targeted some shortcut exploits. If you’re still playing the game and run into anything you notice has been changed in the update, let us know!