Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has been Nintendo’s golden goose for several years, as it’s the company’s best-selling Switch game of all time and has received various updates over the years, becoming a feature-packed experience. Even with Mario Kart World aiming to usurp its position, Nintendo isn’t done dropping new content into Mario Kart 8 yet, as the game just received a new eight-player split-screen mode out of nowhere on Switch 2. It’s free to download, allows for up to eight players to share the screen locally, and it looks wild in action.
Alongside the new mode that segments your TV like a slab of chocolate, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Version 4.0.0 also adds several more improvements that take advantage of the increased horsepower on Switch 2. In a nutshell, you’re getting sharper graphics, CameraPlay support, and shorter load times in addition to smaller quality-of-life tweaks under the hood of the popular kart-racing game. Even player speed has been increased by a whopping coin–whatever that means.
But the expanded local split-screen is the real star of the show here, as not only can you strain your eyes while playing on TV, but you can also make your local optometrist happy by watching all those races unfold in handheld mode on the Switch 2. Considering just how much of an intensive load it is to render eight sessions in real time, the new multiplayer mode is a technical marvel to watch.
This will likely keep Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at the top of the Nintendo food chain for a while yet. Mario Kart World has its charm, but as fans have pointed out, the anemic amount of content added since its launch last year has made it hard to root for. That drought might be coming to a temporary end, as with a rumored Nintendo Direct supposedly arriving later this month, players are expecting Mario Kart World to get some sort of an update. If you’re looking to grab it, a new Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle ($550) launches in late September–albeit for $50 when compared to the original launch bundle.
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