Well folks, it’s been a crazy few days for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe news, hasn’t it? Indeed, not only did the trailer and release date for wave 3 of the Booster Course Pass get posted online, but the game itself has seen a prototype leaked too!
Yep, thanks to a Nintendo Switch dev kit being anonymous leaked online via Archive.org, the data for a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe prototype has been recovered too. And as you can see in the video below, it’s a very different beast indeed:
For instance, this version of the game has a working debug menu. This lets you select everything from the character and course to things like engine classes and emulated network data. It’s pretty awesome to see, and certainly opens up a few intriguing possibilities for testing (like say, battles on normal tracks or races on battle courses).
But the debug menu isn’t the only interesting thing here. No, some other content and mechanics from the final game haven’t been implemented either.
Like say, the purple mini turbos. In this version, it only goes up to orange mini turbos, meaning the third level of boosts from 8 Deluxe weren’t implemented at this point in development. Same with auto accelerate, which cannot be enabled as an option in this version.
And quite a few graphics are missing too. These include various menu items, the Mii icon on the character select screen (it’s just another Mario at the moment), and the Pit Toads (who use sketches rather than renders):
Hell, even the bootup logo isn’t the final one. Nope, that still says Nintendo NX, implying this prototype came from a point in the console’s life where even the name of the system wasn’t decided yet:
The Nintendo Switches Codename was the NX and this was an early Logo / Boot Up animation used during development of the Console ( It was found in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Prototype ) This was never seen outside Nintendo pic.twitter.com/B1bS5zCKOu
— Paul Kelly (@PaulFelixKelly) November 20, 2022
It’s a very different version of the game for sure, and one which shows just how much has changed in the time the game’s been in development.
So check it out! Watch the video above for a glimpse at the prototype in action, view the Cutting Room Floor page for the prototype for more info on how the debug menu and settings work…
Then leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments below, on social media and on our Discord server today!
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