Well, it’s official. Mario Kart Tour is now dead.
Indeed, as a quick check of the app will show you, the game is officially offline for good. You just get a message about service being discontinued and the promise of an update that’ll let you view stats for past tours:
And to be honest, it’s kinda tragic to see. Why?
Because despite the questionable monetisation systems and progression structure in place, Mario Kart Tour had a lot of characters, tracks and other content that never appeared in another game.
Like, all of the following unique characters:
- Boomerang Bro
- Captain Toad
- Dixie Kong
- Fire Bro
- Ice Bro
- King Bob-omb
- Koopa (Freerunning) types
- Poochy
As well as hundreds of costumes for other characters from throughout the Mario franchise. Yeah, some of those made the jump in Mario Kart World. Or other Mario games of various types…
But a large percentage didn’t. Approximately 90% of costumes and character variants in Tour are now officially gone for good.
Same goes with tracks too. Oh sure, the cities and most ‘original’ courses made the jump to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe via the Booster Course Pass.
Yet many more didn’t. Piranha Plant Pipeline’s the biggest example here, but you can’t underestimate the remixed tracks either. There are already about a dozen from Super Mario Kart that are now likely lost to Tour:
- RMX Bowser’s Castle 1
- RMX Choco Island 1
- RMX Donut Plains 1
- RMX Choco Island 2
- RMX Ghost Valley 1
- RMX Mario Circuit 1
- RMX Rainbow Road 1
- RMX Rainbow Road 2
- RMX Vanilla Lake 1
- RMX Vanilla Lake 2
But again, that’s only part of the picture. Other courses also have reverse and trick variations, many of which routes not possible in the vanilla course. Like how the remixed version of Coconut Mall has players traverse the beach next to the shopping centre.
So, there’s a lot being made unavailable here. And that’s even without counting all the classic course remakes that haven’t returned in other games.
Like sure, the big ones are in either 8 Deluxe or World at this point. If you’re after some of the best tracks in the series (like Waluigi Pinball, Airship Fortress or Maple Treeway), you’re hardly short of options to play those.
However, that’s only a small percentage of the series’ courses. Mario Kart Tour went above and beyond in the remake department there, and remade dozens of tracks from across the series. Super Mario Kart was mostly included in Tour due to this, while plenty of previously forgotten Super Circuit tracks got a new lease of life thanks to the game.
Hence not having an offline version means a lot of content is being locked away here. A lot of content that should really have been made available in a more permanent format at some point in the game’s lifespan.
Regardless, at least some options do exist here. If you want the city tracks or originals, most of those are in the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so that solves part of the problem. And if you’re willing to delve into fanworks and mods, approximately 80% of Tour’s content exists in custom character or track form for either Mario Kart Wii or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
But as far as the game’s mechanics go, it’s the end of the line. Mario Kart Tour is officially dead, and there are no plans to release an offline version like with Animal Crossing Pocket Camp.
Source:
Mario Kart Tour has now sadly closed for business (My Nintendo News)