Issue #80: Radical Racers (That Aren't Mario Kart) – November/December 2025

Following its launch alongside the new Switch 2 earlier this year, the series’ latest sequel, Mario Kart World, sold nearly 6,000,000 copies just within the month of June. That insane number — which makes it the biggest launch for a new Mario Kart game in history — was largely fueled by the fact that Nintendo offered the game in a bundle with the hardware. But for it to have been given that most prominent position of “pack-in game” for an all-new console, Mario Kart must’ve proven itself as a surefire success already leading up to the new system launch.

Oh yeah . . . the last Kart game has sold somewhere close to 77,000,000 copies. And is still selling regularly even in the wake of the release of World!

Full recognition and praise and applause to Mario Kart as a brand, because that series has absolutely been killing it. Just a breathtaking degree of sales success. But, sadly, that same extreme success seems to have played a major role in killing off most of Nintendo’s other racing franchises!

A couple of decades ago, Mario Kart was on the rise, for sure. But Nintendo’s racing portfolio was still diverse, as we were also getting new entries in series like F-Zero and 1080° and Wave Race. We were getting quirky one-offs like Kirby Air Ride and Pokémon Dash. Nintendo was not afraid of diluting Mario Kart’s appeal by offering other racers around it.

Now, though, it’s been years since those other franchises were last active. Mario Kart even seems to have absorbed some of them, as 8 Deluxe included homage tracks to F-Zero and Excitebike, and World has introduced new water racing segments that feel suspiciously similar to Wave Race. It’s like Nintendo decided to pull all their racing efforts together and toss them into the same Mario-branded basket.

. . . And yet.

Out of nowhere, blazing into this bleak reality, crashing in to upset that exact narrative is the surprise return of Kirby Air Ride! Masahiro Sakurai’s kooky Kirby series racing spin-off from 2003 has never had even a hint of getting a sequel until its surprise reveal earlier this year, and now we’re on the cusp of its November release, not even six months after Mario Kart World entered at least 6,000,000 homes. (And likely millions more in more recent months.)

In this NF issue, we’re shining the spotlight on this sudden twist in Nintendo’s racing history! Our central feature, Radical Racers, helps us remember the elapsed series that Mario Kart has lapped over the years. We’ve got our final pre-release preview of Kirby Air Riders, an interview with the artist who created Captain Falcon and the rest of the F-Zero racers, our review of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and much, much more!

Mario Kart’s sensational success seemed like it had closed the door on the Big N’s other racing brands. But maybe not anymore? Let’s talk about it!