Mario Kart 8 Getting A Huge Update Fans Have Been Waiting For?
An online leak of Nintendo's Mario Kart 8 update reveals new drivers.
It would seem that Mario Kart 8 might receive a huge update in the future. This is surprising news considering that Mario Kart 8 doesn’t actually have an extensive update history, except for an update that upset the fandom and the one that brought more obstacles to Mario Kart 8 tracks. However, not all is what it seems. Twitter user teebeeYT, discovered a clue that they believe might hint at what comes next for the Mario Kart 8 video game title.
The Mario Kart 8 leak reveals a long list of new drivers (in-game characters) that are supposed to drop in the upcoming Booster Course Pass. The discovered information includes sets of files for characters such as Catherine, King Bob-omb, Diddy Kong, and Pauline, among many others. Apparently, we’ll get more than just a few new tracks that Nintendo has previously announced.
It’s important to note that teebeeYT isn’t actually the source of the leak; instead, the leak comes from an anonymous source claiming to have worked on the game themselves. The anonymous leaks, such as those related to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, coming from Nintendo staff aren’t actually a novelty. But this is where things get interesting. In most cases, developers deposit various files for the upcoming DLC with smaller updates, which sit in the game data, waiting to be unlocked in future updates.
However, this isn’t the case with Mario Kart 8 since no files are currently found in the game’s data. Instead, they were just leaked by someone claiming to work or had been working on them. This means that there’s no way to actually verify the authenticity of this information, so it’s best to ingest this news with a grain of salt. So, the leak-purporting sets of character files might be just a clever ruse to gain a few retweets on social media. Whether or not that’s the case remains to be seen, but this isn’t the first time we’ve witnessed Mario Kart leaks that never came to be.
The truth is that Mario Kart 8 has a very skimpy update history, and most updates that we’ve received so far are related to new tracks and racing cups rather than the drivers themselves. The game’s character roster, as it currently is, has 36 different playable characters, which include 16 default characters and 14 unlockable ones. The fandom is generally happy with what it currently has, but considering that the game was released in 2017, some additions to the character roster would be nice—at least to bring novelty and increase the lifespan of the game.
The original Mario Kart 8 was released in 2014 for Nintendo Wii U—a colossal flop of a console—to massive critical success. The game was praised for its gameplay and presentation, but its battle mode received a mixed review. Despite releasing on a failing console, the game was so popular it got a rerelease in 2017—the one we’re currently discussing—for the record-breaking Nintendo Switch console.
