By What a remarkable surprise
If you observed any of the responses to the Mario Kart World unveiling trailer, then it’s likely you heard someone exuberantly shout “you can race as a COW?!”.
Indeed, the cow, an NPC entity recognized for its role in Moo Moo Meadows, is now a playable character in the imminent Mario Kart game for Switch 2. In the latest Ask the Developer interview at Nintendo, Masaaki Ishikawa discussed the rationale behind Cow’s addition.
Frankly, it appears to have simply been a matter of considering what fresh elements could be introduced after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe featured so many newcomers. Here’s Ishikawa’s insight:
“Each new Mario Kart installment introduces fresh characters to race with, but since we incorporated numerous ones in the previous title, we pondered where to proceed from there. Then one of the designers produced that amusing sketch of Cow zooming by, and I thought, “This is the one!” (Laughs) That’s when we realized the course environments actually held a wealth of untapped possibilities.
“The character artist quickly assembled a prototype of Cow that could compete, and surprisingly it felt entirely appropriate. So, we considered including other obstacle characters and opted to add Cheep Cheep and Pokey as competitors. Consequently, the concept of transforming obstacle characters, typically found in tracks from earlier titles, into race participants made sense to me within the context of an interconnected universe.”
Characters like Cow and Cheep Cheep are referred to as ‘NPC Racers’ by Nintendo, with Ishikawa humorously stating that Cow specifically “is actually a critical character in the Mario Kart franchise”.
To complement the details from the Ask the Developer interview, Nintendo has also unveiled new footage from Mario Kart World featuring Cow participating in one of the game’s challenges, as highlighted by TodayNews on BlueSky. The mission? “Mooove” through a herd of cows, naturally. Chuckle!
Mario Kart World is scheduled to debut alongside the Switch 2 on 5th June 2025. Nintendo also disclosed that the game was initially in development for Switch 1, and explained the reason behind not labeling the game ‘Mario Kart 9’.
Will Cow be your favorite racer in Mario Kart World? Or do you have another character in consideration? Share your thoughts with us.
[source nintendo.com]
Nintendo Life’s dedicated horror enthusiast, when he’s not immersed in Resident Evil and Silent Hill mythology, Ollie enjoys delving into a gripping horror novel while sipping a warm cup of tea. He also appreciates long strolls and listens to a wide range of music from TOOL to Chuck Berry.