Mario Kart 8 Deluxe getting beautiful new Yoshi Island course and Birdo-Michael Beckwith-Entertainment – Metro

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – race like it’s 1995 (pic: Nintendo)

It’s not just new and classic racetracks anymore; Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s DLC is bringing back old characters too, starting with Birdo.

It’s honestly impressive how the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC keeps surprising us, despite datamines more or less giving away which returning racetracks would be added.

Aside from some fan favourites and reworked versions of racetracks from the Mario Kart Tour mobile game, Wave 2’s Sky-High Sundae set the precedent of entirely new ones being included.

While most of the upcoming fourth wave’s content hasn’t been shared yet, last night’s Nintendo Direct did confirm that another original track will debut, one that’s entirely based on the Yoshi’s Island games.

Simply named Yoshi’s Island, fans of the original 1995 game will immediately recognise many of its environments and features, including some of the enemy types populating the background.

It even has those clouds with the question marks that, if hit, will create entirely new pathways.

It obviously doesn’t recreate the game’s distinct art style, since that would be a bit jarring, but it still looks incredible and is better suited for the more cartoony graphics these DLC tracks have adopted.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – who else could show up in future DLC? Diddy Kong? Petey Piranha? Pauline? (pic: Nintendo)

That wasn’t the only surprise either; the next wave will also add another playable character: Birdo. Much like Yoshi, she’ll come with multiple alternate colours, as well as her default pink.

Birdo has been a semi-regular character in the Mario Kart series since 2003’s Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, so she’s hardly a radical inclusion, but no one can really complain about getting an extra character when the DLC is already such a strong offer.

However, one detail Nintendo didn’t mention in the Direct is that Birdo isn’t a one-off. More characters from previous games will be added in future waves too. Hopefully, this will include characters who debuted in the mobile game, such as Pauline and Kamek.

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There’re still two more waves of DLC after Wave 4 so there’ll presumably only be two extra characters, but that’s still more than what we all initially thought we were getting with the DLC.

As for Wave 4, it’ll be out in the spring, with the last two waves still slated to release before the end of the year.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is available for Nintendo Switch.

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