With it now being officially part of the Mario Kart series and being readily accessible compared to its predecessors, Mario Kart Tour has a chance of being the most recognizable and financially successful game in the series at the expense of its peers. This case gets more worrisome with the announcement of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe “Booster Course Pass” DLC. The aforementioned downloadable content will include tracks from Mario Kart Tour as part of the remastered courses, officially elevating Tour to the same level as games like Mario Kart 64, Double Dash, and Wii. While giving Tour some spotlight is good, Nintendo should not go overboard with the Tour representation in the DLC.
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The Problem With Focusing on Mario Kart Tour
It is clear that Mario Kart fans have been asking Nintendo to reveal new content for years now. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe marked the first instance in the series aside from the awkward Virtual Boy era where a new game was not developed for a newly released Nintendo system, and was instead replaced by an updated version of an older game. In short, it has been eight years since the last new console Mario Kart, and despite the Mario Kart 9 rumors, Nintendo wants to keep Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on life support for at least an additional year.
The announcement’s focus on Mario Kart Tour is not just a case of biases formed by a novelty factor. There are some implications that the DLC will rely on Tour for content. Out of the tracks confirmed to be part of the “Booster Course Pack”, the only ones to have never appeared in a previous Mario Kart game were the Mario Kart Tour tracks. Additionally, the visuals are different from the courses that are already in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, especially the lighting. Analysis from fans has determined that even tracks that were previously remastered, like Coconut Mall and Choco Mountain, are ripped from Mario Kart Tour.
While there is a chance that the tracks are simply not finalized, the fact that they look like they do when the first wave is coming out soon is worrisome. More cynical Mario Kart fans are rightfully concerned that Nintendo is taking shortcuts for the DLC’s development and is only pumping new tracks out five years after Deluxe’s release to appease demanding fans. If this truly is Nintendo’s mindset, then Mario Kart Tour will surely dominate the DLC and turn it into a missed opportunity.
The “Booster Course Pack” should be great news for Mario Kart fans due to how much replay value it adds to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. However, that does not mean that it should serve as a walking advertisement for a mobile game. Mario Kart Tour content should be sparse in the DLC, as it should instead focus on promoting Mario Kart’s history through the tracks it brings back and the visual makeover it gives them. Hopefully, the tracks in the DLC will have the same recognizable flair as the other courses in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is available now on Nintendo Switch.
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