TheMario Kart Worldcommunity is undergoing somewhat of a schism over a controversial update to the game’s online modes. Essentially, a recent update changed the way random course selection works, meaning you can now wind up racing on an intermission track rather than a traditional three-lap race on a normal track.
While some people enjoy the intermission tracks—roads that connect one track to another in the open world—others despise them, saying they’re nothing more than straight roads that connect tracks together and are not courses worth racing.
The backlash to this update has been intense, with fansreview bombing Mario Kart Worldand demanding that Nintendo implement a different system that excludes intermission tracks from the course lineup.
Incredible Infrastructure
Well,an enterprising Reddit user named MrL314has gone through the painstaking effort of mapping out every primary road, secondary road and railway line on Mario Kart World’s map.
The map doesn’t have every road; there are a couple of off-road paths not marked, but it’s a very impressive effort and does a good job of conveying the intricacies of Mario Kart World’s open world.
The verdict? Those intermission roads aren’t as straight as you think. There are a few jagged turns on the roads that connect courses and while they aren’t quite hairpin turns, and you don’t always need to excessively drift, they’re not the straight roads that detractors make them out to be.
“I thought they were straight lines, all the drama mongers and 15-year-old Redditors said it was so,” writesYogurt_Ph1r3, sarcastically disputing recent complaints from players.
“Impossible, I keep being told that all the roads between courses are perfectly straight lines,” comments the aptly-namedNorthernSkeptic.
It’s unknown if Nintendo is planning to respond to player feedback regarding intermission tracks, or if the company is satisfied with the outcome of the recent update.
Our own Sam Woods is a prolific online Mario Kart World player, and hetracked every character pick in all of his racesto gauge which racers are the most popular. The results aren’t all too surprising, with the series' most popular characters dominating pick rates.
