Free new Mario Kart World update adds team races to its Knockout Tour mode

Nintendo has released a free update for Mario Kart World, which adds team races to its chaotic Knockout Tour mode.

In Knockout Tour, players race to not just win, but to stay in the game at all. If you fail to reach a checkpoint ahead of a set number of others, you will be - as the name suggests - knocked out of the running.

Until now, this had been a solo affair, however Nintendo has now made it so you can race as a team with your friends and family. In the words of Nintendo: "Buddy up and barrel forward!"

So, how does this new team-based Knockout Tour actually work in practice? Well, it's still going to have 24 racers, but up to four teams can now take part. What this means is that you can expect to see a 12v12 race, an 8v8v8 race, or a 6v6v6v6 race. If you don't have enough players to fill all the spots, then CPU characters pop in.

The winner at the end of this flavour of Knockout race is then determined not by who finishes first, but by the total points tally of every member in the team. Points are awarded based on the overall placement of each driver on the team, 50 points for first place, 40 for second, 35 for third and 30 for fourth place. Meanwhile, those who finish towards the end of the pack get less points, with the four drivers who fail to make it past the first checkpoint only getting a scant one point to their names.

So, even if you are an absolute racing super star, and make it to that shiny first place spot, your team may overall still fail to claim victory. Meanwhile, if you happen to be knocked out from the race earlier than you may have liked, you can then watch from the sidelines to spur your team mates on.

Image credit: Nintendo

For more on this update, you can check out the full Mario Kart World version 1.5.0 patch notes below:

General

• Added team races to Knockout Tour when playing in a room during "Online Play" and "Wireless Play".
• The game now supports the Polish language (Note: You can change your selected language using the "Language" setting in the "System" menu of "System Settings".)

Fixed Issues

• Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes end if a player plays as Kamek on Choco Mountain.
• Fixed an issue where the displayed rating would sometimes be incorrect when joining "Everyone" in "Online Play" while in a room.
• Several other issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.

Image credit: Nintendo

If you are still on the fence about giving Mario Kart World a spin, be sure to check out Eurogamer's review, where our Tom remarked how the game "offers neat twists on the classic Mario Kart formula", calling it all "entertaining, snackable, fun".