It’s not been a good few years for Nintendo mobile games, has it?
Indeed, with Dr Mario World and Miitomo long discontinued, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp being made offline only and Mario Kart Tour being in rerun mode since 2023, it’s clear the company is moving away from the format altogether. Heck, even Super Mario Run seems to only exist as a promotional tool for other titles now!
But now it seems like Mario Kart Tour has reached the end of the road altogether. Why? Because earlier today, Nintendo announced it’d be ceasing service this September, with no offline version in sight. Here’s the announcement for it from their official Twitter account:
Service for the Mario Kart Tour game ends on Sept. 29 at 11:00 p.m. PT / Sept. 30 at 8:00 a.m. CEST. Thank you for your support throughout the years. For info on how rubies and the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass will be handled moving forward, see in-game notifications or FAQ below.
— Mario Kart Tour (@mariokarttourEN) July 8, 2026
Yeah, it’s not long now, is it? With only 2 and a half months to go until the game goes offline for good, you’re gonna need to make the most of it if you want to get anything else from the title. You will at least be able to enjoy the game for free now though, since apparently the benefits of the now scrapped Gold Pass will be available to all players from the 4th of August until the game’s closure.
And you’ll at least get to enjoy Piranha Plant Pipeline one more time before the course likely disappears from the face of the planet. That’s the next tour available in the game, and runs until August 4th’s Vacation one:
The Pipe Tour starts today and it features Piranha Plant Pipeline! #MarioKartTour pic.twitter.com/kZwkfy29Yt
— Mario Kart Tour (@mariokarttourEN) July 8, 2026
So, Mario Kart Tour is now officially on the way out. It ends service at the end of September, with no way to play the game after that.
Which in turn only makes us more disappointed that Stop Killing Games hasn’t achieved its goals here. Since well, Mario Kart Tour has a surprising amount of content unavailable in the rest of the series.
Like say, the aforementioned Piranha Plant Pipeline. That course was the only new one not added to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe via the Booster Course Pass, and is hence now only available in the form of fan ports and remakes to other games.
However, that’s hardly the only thing stuck in Tour. There are remixed tracks unavailable anyone else, like RMX Mario Circuit, RMX Vanilla Lake 2 and RMX SNES Rainbow Road. There are reverse and trick variations for approximately 80% of the tracks in the game…
And there are a metric ton of characters and costumes currently only available there. Boomerang Bro, Ice Bro and Fire Bro, Captain Toad, Poochy, Nabbit, King Bob-omb… the list just goes on and on, even before we get to the costumes and alts.
The Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe definitely helps a bit here, since it archives all the city tracks and many of the original ones.
But there’s still just so much content unavailable in that pack. So many costumes unavailable in Mario Kart World. So much stuff just locked to a mobile game with mere months to live.
It’s why initiatives like Stop Killing Games are so important nowadays. Yes, the majority of online-only games are mediocre to bad, or lack a substantial audience…
But they still have fans. They still have content and mechanics and ideas you can’t get anywhere else. Losing them forever just because a company went out or business (or won’t support them anymore) is absurd.
Regardless, what do you think about all this? Are you disappointed to see Mario Kart Tour shut down at the end of September? What are your thoughts on Nintendo not providing an offline only version of this title?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Discord server today!
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