The developers behind Mario Kart World have explained why they chose Cow over Link and Isabella in its character roster.
Before Mario Kart World was announced, some fans hoped it would take some cues from Super Smash Bros. and become a crossover of all Nintendo properties.
The precedent for this was set in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where Splatoon Inklings, Link from The Legend Of Zelda, and villagers from Animal Crossing made the roster. This was the first time Nintendo characters outside of the Mushroom Kingdom had made it into Mario Kart, with courses based on F-Zero and Excitebike thrown in too.
While it seemed logical that this would continue in Mario Kart World, the sequel doesn’t feature any other Nintendo characters – instead opting for an influx of minor Mario freakos like Conkdor, Cataquack, Penguin, and the Cow from Moo Moo Meadows.
Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki has explained why this is the case in an interview with Ouest-France, where he described the potential inclusion of other Nintendo characters in the sequel as ‘incongruous’.
‘As developers, it would have seemed incongruous to us to add characters from other games into this universe,’ he told the outlet (via machine translation). ‘And it didn’t seem necessary to us, given everything we could already do with Mario.’
Yabuki, who also served as a producer on ARMS, was asked if he ever considered adding characters from that game to the roster. ‘Absolutely not!’ he replied with a laugh.
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Speaking about the slew of new minor Mario characters, he added: ‘We were hoping that the addition of these new drivers would be a pleasant surprise for players. But the reception has been so warm that it surprised even us! It definitely exceeded our expectations.’
The big question is whether his comments rule out any potential Nintendo crossovers for Mario Kart World in the future. Characters from Zelda and Animal Crossing were added to Mario Kart 8 via DLC packs, and the open structure of Mario Kart World lends itself to extra courses being added as a potentially separate island down the line.
Based on the success of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which sold over 68 million copies and received DLC in the form of the Booster Course Pass, new tracks and characters for Mario Kart World feels inevitable – but then again, Nintendo has a knack for doing the unexpected.
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