The Mario Kart franchise has been entertaining us all for decades—even with sibling fights and fits of rage over losing a race from a blue shell at the last second—but Mario Kart World is the first game to go open world. There hasn’t been a truly new entry in the series since 2014's Mario Kart 8, so being stoked to dive into this exciting adventure is perfectly reasonable. Equally reasonable, especially given the game’s controversial price tag, is to wonder how long it’ll take to beat and what type of replayability it offers. Let’s talk about it.
How long does it take to beat Mario Kart World?
Mario Kart World is a racing game first and foremost, so that’s what you can expect to spend a lot of time doing. But if your goal is simply to tackle all of the game’s races and call it quits, you can complete every Grand Prix cup in just a few hours of playtime. You’ll probably find the experience lacking, though, as that’s only a small part of what Nintendo’s newest entry in the franchise serves up.
Mario Kart games are known for having an extremely long lifespan due to their seemingly endless replayability. If you thoroughly enjoy racing in Mario Kart World, you can continue to replay its tracks as many times as you’d like via time trials or offline tournaments by yourself or via split-screen multiplayer.
Alternatively, you can head online to race up to 24 players in a standard Grand Prix or Knockout Mode, the latter of which is a brand-new elimination-based showdown. If you’re feeling feisty, you may want to take to the Battle Mode to fight your pals in a silly arena fight to see who can defeat each other with items. With all of this to do with friends (or strangers, if you’re so inclined), Mario Kart World will likely keep you busy for many months, or even years, after release.
If you’re more interested in exploring the game’s open world, you can do so entirely alone, or you can team up with your pals in a free roam session to explore it together. You’ll be able to round up plenty of collectibles or engage in dozens and dozens of short-but-sweet P-Switch missions—though it’s worth noting that the latter is strangely absent in cooperative free roam, so you’ll have to do those all by yourself. Sorry!
If this new kart racing outing sounds like fun to you, Mario Kart World is available now exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2.
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