If Mario Kart 9 needs to finest succeed it must make one main change to the franchise.
It has been over ten years because the final mainline Mario Kart sport. Mario Kart 8 got here out for the Wii U in Might 2014, earlier than getting a particular rerelease on the Nintendo Change in 2017 sporting a Deluxe subtitle.
Since then, phrase on the Mario Kart entrance has been comparatively quiet. Nintendo continued to help Mario Kart 8‘s Change launch within the years since with 48 new DLC tracks, however no full-scale follow-up has ever been broached by the Japanese gaming large.
Nonetheless, that appears to be altering quickly. A brand new Mario Kart sport seemingly appeared throughout the Nintendo Change 2 announcement, with rumors that the brand new sport (dubbed by followers as Mario Kart 9) can be launched on or across the console’s launch.
Mario Kart 9 Wants To Make a Huge Change
With Mario Kart 9, Nintendo can and may make the largest change in franchise historical past…embrace Nintendo’s historical past like by no means earlier than.
Now, what precisely does that imply? For the reason that inception of the Mario Kart franchise, it has been a primarily Mushroom Kingdom-based affair, solely placing the give attention to Mario and his buddy with its characters, tracks, karts, and gadgets.
Mario Kart 8 modified that, dipping its toes into the crossover waters by bringing in a handful of different Nintendo IPs together with characters and tracks from The Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, and Animal Crossing franchises, in addition to a shoutout to Nintendo’s different racing stalwart, F-Zero, with yet one more bonus course.
However these inclusions finally felt like mere sprinkles on the bigger Mario Kart 9 sundae.
What Mario Kart 9 must do to finest succeed is take a web page out of one other beloved Nintendo franchise, Tremendous Smash Bros., and turn out to be a full-on Nintendo karting crossover.
The Smash collection has lengthy been a celebration of all issues Nintendo (and video video games as a complete in more moderen iterations). This has meant that characters and worlds from throughout the Nintendo canon have gotten the possibility to intermingle in some manic multiplayer enjoyable.
And it’s this crossover nature that may very well be the subsequent groundbreaking evolution for the Mario Kart franchise.
Kart Has Reached Its Artistic Limits
As a collection, Mario Kart has type of creatively felt prefer it has reached its limits lately.
Positive, Mario Kart 8 is among the best-selling video games of all time (over 72 million items offered per Nintendo), and Nintendo may very nicely relaxation on its laurels and launch a Mario Kart 9 that appears and sounds just like their Wii U/Change mega-hit.
Nonetheless, followers of the Change maker know, Nintendo has by no means been one to cease considering outdoors of the field.
When Followers thought the Mario Kart formulation was perfected with 64, the corporate launched the duo-racing Gamecube hit Double Sprint. When the highway felt prefer it was getting outdated, the Mario Kart franchise took gamers to the skies and deep beneath the seas.
Even within the final sport, Nintendo added a brand new spin on the collection’ iconic racing motion by introducing zero-gravity sections with Mario Kart 8.
The Mario Kart formulation has felt prefer it has reached its artistic bounds. So, if it’s going to proceed to evolve and preserve bringing followers again with a brand new artistic twist, it feels just like the pure subsequent step is to herald characters, karts, programs, and gadgets from throughout the Nintendo catalog.
Possibly one other run-of-the-mill Mario Kart would promote simply in addition to Mario Kart 8 did, however followers seeing the likes of Hyperlink, Samus, Kirby, and Pikachu becoming a member of the karting ranks alongside Mario and buddies would get some critical buzz.
If Nintendo needs to make this next-generation sport actually really feel like a artistic leap, then that is the best way to do it.
One Crossover Door Closes And One other Opens
One other huge purpose Nintendo could be sensible to make Mario Kart 9 a crossover affair is the truth that it may very well be dropping its different huge franchise that makes use of the identical schtick (at the very least for now).
The Tremendous Smash Bros. franchise feels as if it’s going to take a while off after its beloved Tremendous Smash Bros. Final on Change. After practically 20 years of constructing the collection larger and greater, Final felt like a end result of kinds, bringing again each character, merchandise, and stage from previous video games.
It additionally included a dream-fulfilling roster of latest characters introducing some actually mind-boggling crossovers from throughout gaming like Steve from Minecraft (yeah, the one being portrayed by Jack Black within the upcoming Minecraft film), Banjo from Banjo Kazooie, and (even) Kingdom Hearts’ Sora.
Final went as huge because the collection is ever prone to go, so it feels proper that Smash takes a little bit of a breather earlier than its subsequent entry.
That isn’t to say the franchise ought to disappear totally. Maybe a remaster of an older sport like Tremendous Smash Bros. Melee is on the desk for Change 2. However the subsequent mainline Smash title is probably going a while away.
What higher approach to fill that void than passing the crossover torch from the hit platform fighter collection to Mario Kart?
Mario Kart 9 has no publicly listed launch window (examine potential Mario Kart 9 launch rumors right here).
