I liked Mario Kart World’s Free Roam mode more when I treated it less like Forza Horizon

When I first booted up Mario Kart World’s Free Roam mode on my Nintendo Switch 2, I was not very impressed.

When I heard the pitch of it being an open-world Mario Kart game, my mind instantly went to Playground Games’ excellent Forza Horizon series, which is currently the king of the open-world racing genre.

As Mario Kart World’s open world doesn’t have nearly the same type of setup or reward variety, that comparison feels unfavorable. However, the more I played, the more I realized that wasn’t the right compassion to make.

Free Roam in Mario Kart World doesn’t work like Forza Horizon. It’s more similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Free Roam is less about the mission and reward variety or offering up a challenge, and more about feeling wonder and excitement as you discover a new area or learn how to reach a Peach Medallion that seems out of reach.

Mario Kart World is proof that Nintendo is embracing a new kind of open-world sandbox game design.

Mario Kart World isn’t like Forza Horizon

Two games that seem similar but are very different

When you boot up an open-world racer like Forza Horizon 5, you’re instantly greeted with a map littered with different icons.

These are all different races and challenges, sometimes restricting which car you use, and you complete them to earn new vehicles or currency that you can spend on new vehicles.

As a franchise, Forza Horizon is mainly about completing challenges and staying on the hamster wheel of currency-earning progression. The game will also constantly guide players down the best path to their objective if desired.

There are open-world racing games that emulate Forza Horizon’s formula. The Crew Motorfest has attracted a healthy fan base, while Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown revived an old racing game series while taking cues from more recent open-world racers.

Seeing Mario Kart World adopt other Forza features, like rewinding, alongside the open world, I assumed it would function mostly the same way. While there are similarities, it’s not all the same.

Free Roam technically has a map, but it doesn’t show players anything other than the location of characters and specific tracks.

There are P-Switch challenges to complete, plus Peach Medallions and ? Block Panels to find scattered throughout the open world, but players have to find them all themselves.

Then, when you find those things or complete those challenges, you’re rewarded with nothing but a sticker that you can barely see on the side of your vehicle.

Those differences make Free Roam not as enjoyable if you play it like a Forza Horizon game.

After putting an hour or so into the mode, I considered putting it down and not revisiting it.

After I decided to give Free Roam another shot on a trip earlier this month, I came to understand that Forza Horizon didn’t primarily influence its open-world design. Instead, it’s a completely different kind of open-world adventure.

Mario Kart World’s Free Roam owes a lot to Breath of the Wild

The influence of that iconic The Legend of Zelda game continues to be felt

Nintendo revolutionized the open-world genre in 2017 with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The game’s willingness to let players go just about anywhere at any time and climb almost any surface they came across felt revolutionary compared to contemporary open-world adventure games.

Since its release, many games have tried to emulate Breath of the Wild’s approach to open-world design, removing barriers and de-emphasizing specific ways to complete objectives.

It’s a design philosophy that emphasizes the journey just as much as the destination.

When I decided to give Free Roam another shot, I quickly began to notice that Nintendo was taking cues from its own innovative open-world game. If I wanted a more specific objective or race to complete, I could play the Grand Prix, Knockout Tour, or Battle Modes.

Free Roam was more about just immersing myself in a large world. Its design system encouraged me to learn and master techniques like wall-riding as I explored and tried to get places I didn’t think were possible to reach.

In Forza Horizon, I’m hoping a mission will take me to the top of a mountain. In Mario Kart World, I’m encouraged to find a way to the top of the mountain myself and rewarded with a P-Switch or Medallion for getting there.

The emphasis on player choice during exploration makes Free Roam more similar to Breath of the Wild than Forza Horizon 5 in practice.

When I accepted this, I started having a blast with Free Roam, trying my best to find every nook and cranny of its colorful world to see if I could find something surprising.

Mario Kart World shows the future of Nintendo’s open-world games

Donkey Kong Bananza looks like it will take a similar approach

While games like Immortals Fenyx Rising and Tchia already showed that Breath of the Wild’s approach to open-world design would have a lasting legacy, we’re now seeing Nintendo turn its design philosophies inward to games outside of the Zelda franchise.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were the first games to do so, and now Mario Kart World’s Free Roam mode gives players the tools to get just about anywhere, making the journey even more interesting than the destination.

I suspect Mario Kart won’t be the only Nintendo franchise to take cues from Breath of the Wild going forward.

Donkey Kong Bananza is also embracing that sandbox feel by allowing players to climb and destroy almost anything. This approach to open-world design could go on to define the Switch 2 generation of Nintendo games.

For now, we can only wonder how Mario, Pikmin, or Kirby games will embrace this design philosophy whenever they inevitably get new games for Switch 2.