Mario Kart World Producer Says 'It Didn't Seem Necessary' to Add Other Nintendo Characters - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 23 June 2025 / 3,678 Views
Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki in an interview with Ouest France there are no characters from other Nintendo franchises, because it didn't seem necessary.
Yabuki was asked if he ever thoguht of adding characters from Arms into Mario Kart World and he stated "Absolutely not!"
"As developers, it would have seemed incongruous to us to add characters from other games to this universe," said Yabuki. "And it didn't seem necessary to us, given everything we could already do with Mario.
"We inevitably wonder how the players will perceive this casting. But there are so many characters and so many costumes that every player is sure to find what they are looking for."
Yabuki added a new number of new racers were added to Mario Kart World, including the Cow.
"Of course, we were hoping that the addition of these new drivers would be a good surprise for players. But the welcome was so warm that it surprised even us! This clearly exceeded our expectations."
"First of all, I want to say that having a favorite doesn't mean that he has been given the best statistics! But just for the welcome she received, I must admit that she is the Cow."
Mario Kart World released alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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True, why would anyone select Link or Diddy Kong , if you can have Cow? I mean, everyone knows and loves Cow... ;-)
Cow , and King Boo have been my go to for new characters, but Koopa Troopa has traditionally been my most used character since Mario Kart on the SNES.
King Boo isnt new
That's true, I can't remember if I used him much in the games he was in though.
As long as we get Diddy, Dixie and young Pauline in a free update I'll be happy (along with several more costumes for DK and Pauline as well). But I really don't care about characters outside of the Mario/DK universe in Kart.
I'll keep this in mind if they ever decide to sell more characters alongside the eventual map pack.
I find it interesting that some people thought the successor to Mario Kart 8 would add even more Nintendo characters but instead we have no non-Mario related characters.
It could be a thing in whatever Mario Kart releases for Switch 3, but I don't ever think they should outright make a "Smash/Nintendo Kart" where there is about 8-10 Mario characters and the rest are non-Mario characters.
Mario Kart has become Nintendo's flagship IP, and reducing the Mario content in it is a huge risk. Save the big crossovers for Smash and even a non-Smash adventure game.
I wish they found it necessary to let you increase the volume of the music. Its awesome.
Of course not, since they're keeping them for dlc. When that day comes, they'll say it was actually necessary...
So anyway, DLC coming.
Would it have killed them to at least add Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, Cranky Kong and King K. Rool?
They need to save them for the more budget friendly release of Diddy Kong Racing
At this point I doubt they're ever gonna give us a new Diddy Kong Racing. -_-
Lol! Why not add Candy, Funky, Rambi, Expresso and all the kremlings to that list? Or maybe the entire DK universe?
I do think there was a big opportunity there but it admittedly doesn't fit well with the concept of World. Still I wouldn't be suprised if it shows up as DLC again.
Personally, I've always been a little perplexed by characters outside of the Mushroom Kingdom. Even with the first game, I was like wait... why is DK Jr. in here? It's called Mario Kart, not Nintendo Kart. It just never made sense.
In 1982, in a little game literally called "Donkey Kong Jr.", lol
For some reason, I got that mixed up with Donkey Kong 3, which has another protagonist. My bad lol.
But still, the first game took place in the Mushroom Kingdom. So unless Nintendo wants me to believe that DK Jr. somehow ALSO got sucked into a warp pipe, raced a kart circuit one single time before disappearing again forever... I'm not feeling it haha.
Besides, I think I saw somewhere where DK Jr. was added only because they needed another "big" racer for the game. That he was sort of an afterthought. Which is odd, considering there was a whole SLEW of "large" characters in the Mushroom Kingdom by then, like Sumo Bro. That would have made so much more sense.
That is too bad that they actually took out non-Mario stuff, considering that 8 had some and it was great. But I get that considering the 'World' format it'd be a little harder to throw in totally differently themed courses from other franchises straight into the same world, though certainly not an impossible hurdle.
Very much hope on S3 and the next MK they go on to expanding the non-Mario stuff beyond what 8 had. The dream of course would be to have characters, courses, and items from other Nintendo IP all worked in seamlessly, while still of course maintaining Mario IP as the majority, like perhaps 75% Mario, 25% non-Mario: a good array of non-Mario characters, every cup having a non-Mario course, and at least one item unique to each of the included other franchises.
It was awesome that 8 had zelda, fzero, etc courses and a few non-Mario characters. World seems to be a very nice change of pace from the standard MK formula which was definitely feeling like it needed a shake-up, but post-World the way to really take MK to maximum level is to take lessons from both 8 (non-Mario stuff) and World (format that is more than just individual races) and combine them for a best of both worlds approach.
Here's hoping they are humbled.
