11 years after the last mainline entry, expectations are high.
As the Switch 2’s premier launch title, it carries huge expectations.
What can we learn about the game and its tech from what’s been revealed so far?
This performance-saving measure allows MK8 to feature relatively sophisticated lighting, though its low resolution does stick out sometimes.
Most surfaces appear pretty diffuse, with shiny and normal-mapped surfaces in the mix as needed.
Specular detail in MK8 is also fairly simple.
Water surfaces generally look quite transparent even at steep angles too, likely for gameplay reasons.
Trackside lighting still relies on a lot of baking, for instance.
World has some excellent-looking water rendering, with foaming waves and lots of geometric undulation.
It seems that other glossy surfaces do rely on cubemaps though.
Materials quality also seems to have taken a step up here.
Surfaces have higher-detail textures, including better normal maps, and appear more natural.
A side-by-side reveals much better looking artwork that clearly has seen a lot more time and attention.
Characters also typically appear quite different in this new Mario Kart outing.
The same cartoony sensibility is carried into gameplay, as the karts squish, stretch and have looser suspension.
There are also some changes to character designs, most of which are fairly subtle.
Beyond the game’s core visual makeup, we should discuss the title’s basic rendering parameters.
Relying so heavily on baked lighting minimises aliasing gremlins in typical play.
All the material we have so far suggests a 60fps refresh, which is maintained faultlessly.
The game’s photo mode runs at a more modest 30fps update, however.
Split-screen play is also included here, at least for race events.
The same 60fps update is evident, at least for two-player split-screen play.
I think Nintendo ran into a big issue when they sketched out the concept for World.
It’s a very hard game to top on its own terms.
Some mechanics, like ground tricking and wall riding, will hopefully be balanced carefully to avoid degenerate gameplay.
I do share certain community concerns though about the game’s gameplay structure.
Nintendo is keeping their cards close for now, but they are hinting at some exciting possibilities.
