Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

North American box art.
Developer(s)	Nintendo EPD Bandai Namco Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release Date(s)
Nintendo Switch	CH: March 16, 2020 WW: April 28, 2017 WW: December 15, 2017
Nintendo Switch	CH: March 16, 2020 WW: April 28, 2017 WW: December 15, 2017
Platform(s)
Classification(s)	This game has playable Miis
Accessory(ies)	This game is compatible with certain amiibo figures
Sales	61.97 million (70.43 million combined with the original version)
Genre(s)	Racing
ROM Size	6.9 GB
Download Size	7.996 GB [1]
Rating(s)
ESRB	03
PEGI	01
CERO	01
ACB	01
USK	01
SMECCV	01
GRAC	01
CID	01
GSRR	00

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <sup>(JPJapanese: マリオカート8 デラックス

Romaji: Mario Kāto 8 Derakkusu

Meaning: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe)</sup> (also called MK8D or MK8DX) is an enhanced port of the 2014 Wii U racing game, Mario Kart 8, for the Nintendo Switch that was released on April 28, 2017. It includes all the original content and its DLC alongside new features, including a revised Battle Mode much similar to past games, minor gameplay changes, some new items, and several new characters like the Inkling.

First teased in the Switch's announcement video on October 20, 2016, the game was formally announced as part of the Nintendo Switch presentation on January 13, 2017.

New features

Items

The Feather item makes its return since Super Mario Kart exclusively for the new Battle Mode.

Characters can now carry up to two items at once, even if they do not drag the first item, and the game features the return of the Double Item Box from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

In addition, two returning items have been added to the game, with one exclusively for the new "Battle Mode" (see below), which includes the Feather from Super Mario Kart and Boo.

Smart Steering & Auto-Acceleration

In the menu, there are now options for Smart Steering and Auto-Acceleration. The former helps prevent the player from falling off the edge and the latter keeps the acceleration always on, though not very fast. Smart Steering also disables Purple Sparks, which means the player cannot do an Ultra Mini-Turbo.

Ultra Mini-Turbo

There is an additional level of Mini-Turbo, called Ultra Mini-Turbo, denoted by purple (pink in the British English version) sparks that appear after the orange sparks. This new level of Mini-Turbo can only be obtained if Smart Steering is off.

Racers

Inkling is the brand-new character added to the game.

The game includes all thirty-six racers from Mario Kart 8 including the DLC and the following new ones, which are detonated in italic:

• King Boo
• Bowser Jr.
• Dry Bones
• Inkling (Boy)
• Inkling (Girl)
• Gold Mario - unlocked by completing all courses at 200cc
• Link (Champion's Tunic) - Version 1.6.0 Update
• Birdo - Booster Course Pass Wave 4
• Petey Piranha - Wave 5
• Kamek - Wave 5
• Wiggler - Wave 5
• Diddy Kong - Wave 6
• Funky Kong - Wave 6
• Pauline - Wave 6
• Peachette - Wave 6

Tracks

All the 48 tracks (including DLC courses) from Mario Kart 8 return as courses, maintaining their cups and orders.

Karts

Some of the vehicle parts that are exclusive to downloadable content in the original (i.e. parts included within the Mercedes-Benz × Mario Kart 8, The Legend of Zelda x Mario Kart 8, and the Animal Crossing x Mario Kart 8 add-on packs) are now randomly unlocked in-game by collecting Coins during gameplay.

Battle Modes

Balloon Battle in SNES Battle Course 1.

The game features 5 modes with 4 returning from the earlier Mario Kart games. They are as follows:

• Balloon Battle
• Bob-omb Blast
• Coin Runners
• Shine Thief
• Renegade Roundup

Battle Courses

Eight battle courses are present in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; five new and three retro, replacing the repurposed racetracks used for Battle Mode in the Wii U version.

Similar to regular races, a course introduction scene is now added at the start.

• Battle Stadium
• Sweet Sweet Kingdom
• Dragon Palace
• Lunar Colony
• 3DS Wuhu Town
• GCN Luigi's Mansion
• SNES Battle Course 1
• Urchin Underpass

amiibo

The game supports all the amiibo the previous game supported. These unlock Mii Costumes for the game. There is one new costume this time, the Inkling Mii Costume, unlocked by scanning a Splatoon series amiibo.

DLC and Updates

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has extensive support for Nintendo Switch accessories like Nintendo Labo.

Starting in June 2018, the game started to receive content updates. In the June 2018 update, Nintendo added a Nintendo Labo control option using the Toy-Con Motorbike. The Joy-Cons are inserted when the race starts. The game automatically puts the player in an over-the-shoulder view though the player can change it to the normal view with the down button.

In the July 2018 update, the game added new content from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, including the Champion's Tunic for Link, with the Master Cycle Zero, Ancient Tires and the Paraglider as the parts.

On December 7th, 2022, the game had an update in preparation of Wave 3 of the Booster Course Pass. It introduced its very first gameplay update, as being hit by the Lightning item no longer makes you fall while gliding. Other notable additions include a new custom item mode that has been added to offline VS races as well as some online modes, a few bugfixes and minor quality of life improvements.

On November 9th, 2023, an update to coincide the release of Wave 6 included a jukebox mode for players to listen to in-game music tracks, as well as exclusive new Mii costumes. The credits for the Booster Course Pass have also been added upon clearing all of its cups in Grand Prix.

Booster Course Pass

Paid downloadable content is available for the game, which mainly consisted in bringing existing tracks that have been remade from the past entries, and returning characters.

It was released periodically in the form of 6 waves, which include 8 courses at a time, until November 9, 2023.

The first wave of the Booster Course Pass was released on March 18, 2022.

Music

The music for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was composed by Shiho Fujii, Atsuko Asahi, Ryo Nagamatsu, and Yasuaki Iwata and plus new tracks composed by Asuka Hayazaki who was previously involved with Mario Kart Wii also Toru Minegishi, Kazumi Totaka, and Koji Kondo composed songs for this game which was their first Mario Kart game that they composed music for. They composed songs which was based on tracks such as MKDS's Luigi's Mansion and Sweet Sweet Canyon.

Kenta Nagata didn't receive a credit in this version for providing the music for the Mario Kart 8 DLC courses. This is possibly due to the fact that they only credited the same composers for the base game at release. He did receive a credit for serving as the game's sound director though.

In the 3.0.0 update, a new mode lets players listen to music tracks from each course.

Gallery

Main article: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe/gallery

Reception

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe receives "universal acclaim" reviews and is tagged as a "Must-Play" game on Metacritic, it has a metascore of 92/100 based on 95 critic reviews.

Sales

In the United Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe debuted at No. 1 on the sales chart, making it the first Nintendo game to be No. 1 in the UK since 2011's Pokémon White Version, and the first Mario game to place such since Mario Kart Wii.

The game sold 459,000 copies for its US launch day, making it the fastest-selling Mario Kart game in the US and meaning 45% of US Switch owners purchased the game.

As of December 31, 2017, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had sold 7.33 million units worldwide. On March 31, 2018, it reached 9.22 million units, exceeding the original Mario Kart 8's 8.42 million and making it the second best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch behind Super Mario Odyssey. As of January 31, 2019, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold 15.02 million units worldwide, exceeding the sales of Super Mario Odyssey and making it the best-selling first-party game on the Nintendo Switch. As of September 2019, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 19.01 million units worldwide. As of the end of December 2019, the game sold over 22.96 million units making it the first Nintendo Switch game to ever cross the 20 million mark. By the end of March 2020, the game reached 24.77 million unit sold worldwide. As of June 30th, 2020 the game has sold more than 26.74 million units. The game reached 28.99 million units sold by the end of September 2020. The game passed the 30 million units sold milestone before December 31, 2020. It also became the first title to pass this milestone on the Nintendo Switch with 33.41 million units sold. It was soon followed by Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the same time period. The game sold 35.39 million units as of the end of March 2021. By the end of June 2021, the game had sold over 37.08 million units. It reached 38.74 million units sold worldwide by the end of September 2021, surpassing Mario Kart Wii.

The game reached 43.35 million copies sold by the end of 2021. This makes it the first Nintendo Switch game to pass the 40 million milestone. It then reached 45.33 million units sold by the end of March 2022. As of June 30, the game reached 46.82 million units sold.

Awards and acknowledgements

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was nominated for the "Best Family Game" and "Best Multiplayer" awards at The Game Awards 2017. However, it won neither, losing the former to Super Mario Odyssey and the latter to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Trivia

• The best-selling Nintendo Switch game ported from the Wii U, both versions of Mario Kart 8 are the best-selling games for both systems, and making it the best-selling Mario game, to date.
  • Combining the sales of both, the total worldwide sales is 69.04 million units sold.
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe marks the sub-series' return of King Boo, Bowser Jr., Dry Bones, and Birdo (BCP) as playable characters.
• The red-blue color combination for the "8" logo may represent the game's porting; blue (a Wii U game) and red (a Nintendo Switch port)
• As a result of the Booster Course Pass, Mario Kart 8 has the most amount of courses of any Mario Kart game, totaling up to 96.
• Outside of Tour, this is the first mainline appearances of Kamek, Pauline, and Peachette.
  • Kamek was also planned for Mario Kart 64, but was scrapped.

Music/Audio

• While not present in the original Wii U, Nintendo composers have composed new music for this version, including for the Booster Course Pass DLC.
  • Asuka Hayazaki's first involvement in the Mario Kart series since Mario Kart Wii.
  • Koji Kondo's very first Mario Kart game after working on the mainline Super Mario series during his career. He is rumored to have composed the "Battle Stadium" music, though this is yet to be confirmed.
    • Toru Minegishi was also rumored to have rearranged the "Splattack" soundtrack for the Urchin Underpass battle course.
  • In the same instance, a couple new staffers who have worked on this game have not worked on the original: Toru Asakawa (sound programmer) and Takahisa Yamamoto (sound effects; MK8D is his very first project).
  • Daisuke Matsuoka has also composed music for Bowser's Fury, using orchestrated music.
  • One of Ryo Nagamatsu's final credited projects before departing Nintendo in April 2023.
  • Likely the first project for Sayako Doi with live-performed soundtracks.

External links

• Official Japanese site
• Official American site
• Official European site
• Official Oceanian site
• Official Korean site
• Official Chinese (Hong Kong) site
• Official Chinese (Taiwan) site