Mario Kart lost its grip on the kart racer throne in 2025 |
Since the dawn of time — or 1992, I suppose — Mario Kart has been the quintessential kart racer. Whether we’re talking a college dorm party or a family game night, when someone grabs a set of Joy-Cons (or Wii remote, or GameCube controller) and asks for a race, no one’s saying no. Though, with how great some of 2025's other kart racers have been, now that race might not be on a Mario Kart track.
After more than a decade of Mario Kart 8 being the go-to kart racer, Nintendo published a new entry in 2025: Mario Kart World. Though its open world may be a bit underbaked, the minute-to-minute racing is still top-notch, and World’s new Knockout Tour mode is perhaps the genre’s best innovation yet. With 24 racers vying for the top spot, the bottom four are systematically eliminated at various checkpoints throughout a race until only four remain.
Knockout Tour is such a simple idea that it’s remarkable it hasn’t been done in a Mario Kart before. It delivers the rush you get from scrambling toward the finish line multiple times over the course of a single race.........