It Just Got So Much Easier To Play Mario Kart World Alone

"Three months after the launch of Mario Kart World, it's fair to say that the game's open world is the weakest part of the experience. Despite being incredibly well-designed with dozens of variations of tracks that all link into one another, and hundreds of bite-sized challenges known as P-Switches, driving around the Mushroom Kingdom lacked variety after dozens of hours of play. Making matters worse was the inability to track how many P-Switches a player has completed."

"With update 1.3.0, Mario Kart World's map finally shows which P-Switches you've beaten and which Peach Medallions you've found. Adding this critical information to the world map means players will no longer have to drive around aimlessly, hoping to stumble onto one of the 400-plus challenges to make progress. Now, players can simply fast travel to or cruise through an area that hasn't been filled in by checkmarks, narrowing their hunt considerably."

"The new update brings an obvious quality of life improvement that, in all honesty, should have been added ages ago. Open world racing games have been around since the mid-2000s, and all of them have included simple ways of tracking a player's progress. Not having this most essential feature out of the box, let alone an open world full of varied content, impromptu races, and more interesting secrets to uncover, made the latest Mario Kart feel woefully outdated in the single-player department."

Mario Kart World’s open world proved the weakest aspect of the game despite well-designed, interconnected track variations and hundreds of bite-sized P-Switch challenges. The world lacked variety after many hours of play, and the game did not show how many P-Switches a player had completed. Update 1.3.0 adds map markers showing which P-Switches and Peach Medallions have been found, enabling players to fast travel to unchecked areas and narrow their hunt. The improved map provides a critical quality-of-life change that aligns the game with open-world racing conventions that include progress tracking. Some single-player issues remain, but the update is an overdue step toward more usable exploration and progress management.

Read at Inverse