Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Feature
The most important Wii U game of all time comes to Switch and becomes the most important Switch game of all time.
The Switch launch in March 2017 started off strongly, especially thanks to Breath of the Wild. The early days of the console were exciting, but I don’t think anyone truly knew how important Nintendo’s first major post-launch release would be. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe launched in April 2017 and quickly became one of the most important releases on the system, selling a continually increasing amount of copies. This Wii U port soared even higher when Nintendo unleashed the Booster Course in 2022, adding even more tracks to this already beefy game. Almost a decade after the game came out on Wii U, Mario Kart 8 was still getting content and sales. Anyway, here’s our review revisits for this top seller
Neal Ronaghan: I will always hold this truth to be self-evident, that Mario Kart without a meaningful single-player is a bummer, but for the case of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I more or less gave up the ghost. A lot of that comes from the Switch being portable. It’s awesome to be able to just break out this damn-near-immaculate racing game no matter the situation. The additions in the Deluxe version were mostly superfluous or forgettable, but the new assist modes absolutely rock. They’re the perfect training wheels for young gamers, to which I can vouch for personally. This is also easily the best online experience Nintendo ever made and the DLC makes the assortment of courses in this game a truly stupid amount. I look forward to the Mario Kart series evolving in some respects, but honestly: just keep these solid mechanics in place and build around the fringes (like single-player!).
Syrenne McNulty: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the Nintendo Switch. It is probably the most visually impressive game on the platform. It runs at a locked 60 frames per second. It contains all of the content of the Wii U version plus the DLC, except for the change to the battle mode, which was a flat improvement in my mind. The addition of the booster course pack later in the system’s life cycle helped revitalize industry interest in it in a way that generally players didn’t need, because this is one of the most successful single retail SKUs of a game of all time. In fact, that number is actually probably for the fact that it is mostly not a console pack in and it is one SKU. I would actually love to see the final numbers of that. Regardless, it’s a great time.
The online is really solid because it allows for some trickery with you not always being right next to the other players and the other players not needing to be rendered one-to-one realistically with those player’s networked inputs, which honestly just creates this evergreen experience. That’s great handheld, great docked, great single player, great online, great local multiplayer.
Donald Theriault: If this was being written in 2021 I’d probably be a bit more negative on 8 Deluxe: there was a lot of hype surrounding the Battle Mode and it largely went over like a lead balloon, I had already raced on the 48 tracks ad nauseum, and it was generally not an exciting experience. The introduction of the Booster Course Pass and its resulting game updates freshened up the game dramatically, especially with the introduction of an item switch for online play. Want to actually have tests of driving skill? Go nuts. Did you boycott Smash Ultimate due to the lack of Coin Battle and want to have “blue shells only” as your racing mode? Have at it.
The added courses weren’t all winners – though some courses like Peach Gardens were nice remakes with the 8 mechanics, the city courses imported from Mario Kart Tour I found initially confusing especially when I’d ram into a backmarker Pink Gold Peach. But statistically speaking you probably own a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe already, and it’s definitely worth updating even if you don’t want to splash out for a five-year-after-the-fact expansion.
Melanie Zawodniak: Judging the 2017 video game Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in 2025 feels like cheating. I mean, they literally doubled the size of the game with DLC later down the line leaving it with triple the number of courses of the next biggest game in the series. Admittedly they reached those heights by reducing their ambition a bit, and that’s not without a cost. The remade GBA courses in the original 48 tracks are some of the best in the franchise, while the Booster Pass’ GBA courses are the same boring flatlands as they always were. That’s essentially the only complaint I have about this game though, since Mario Kart 8 does everything else I could want from a Mario Kart game. Solid online, actual battle stages, just enough mechanics to feel like there’s some depth to the mechanics, and 200cc, my beloved. I don’t know if there’s another pick-up-and-play party game that’s as simple as this while having so much obvious quality.
