Mario Kart World brings some open-world, Forza Horizon-like flavor to the Nintendo Switch 2 launch game line up, along the way giving rise to an obvious question: How long does it take to drive across Mario Kart World’s, well, world?
According to recent hands-on previews by various outlets, we now have an answer–around 9-10 minutes. For Game File’s Stephen Totilo, who drove as Wario in the game’s Free Roam mode as far into the eastern sea as he could go before proceeding west on a cross-country road trip, the drive took a little over 10 minutes. Other outlets, like Digital Trends, reported a cross-map drive taking around nine minutes.
There will likely be some variation in driving times depending on the character and kart being used, as well as other factors. According to Rolling Stone, the default difficulty for which Mario Kart World was designed around is 150cc, so it’s likely Game File and Digital Trends’ timed drives were done at that speed. Like in normal races, players can also pick up coins that increase their speed while driving in Free Roam, which would decrease how long it takes to drive across the map.
As Nintendo’s first $80 game of the modern era, Mario Kart World has a lot of work to do to justify its price. Unlike previous Mario Kart games, players in Mario Kart World can take to the game’s new Free Roam mode and travel across a massive map filled with race courses, side missions, items, and secrets to discover, all spread out across different biomes ranging from desert sands to snowy mountains.
All of Mario Kart’s usual staples are included as well, however, including Grand Prix races across all of the game’s courses and fan-favorite battle modes. It also includes the new Knockout Tour mode, where players continue to race from course to course, with the bottom handful of players continually eliminated from the race over time. The game originally started development as a Switch 1 game, but moving it to Switch 2 allowed Nintendo to realize its vision for the ambitious follow-up to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Mario Kart World is one of the most-anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 games, as well as Nintendo’s biggest Switch 2-exclusive launch title. Nintendo Switch 2 goes on sale June 5, with some retailers getting restocked on inventory ahead of launch.
