Mario Kart 8 Forever? 8 Questions Answered About The Booster Course Pass

As of December 7th, half of the 48 new courses for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had been released. 

If this is news to you and you’ve been rabidly playing the original Mario Kart 8 Deluxe courses since the game’s release in 2017, you need to keep reading.

For Mario Kart aficionados and video game enthusiasts alike, we’re answering eight questions today about the new Mario Kart Booster Course Pass, including what it costs, where the courses come from, and just how much fun it really is.

If you’re a fan of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (which is pretty likely, considering its the best-selling Nintendo Switch game with well over 45 million copies sold), you must know its courses fairly well by now. 

32 of those courses came from the original Mario Kart 8 game from 2014, and an additional 16 from the release in 2017.

Earlier this year, though, Nintendo announced plans to double the amount of courses available for your favorite kart racers to take on. Their plan: to release DLC over the next two years that include an additional 48 courses for a total of 96.

We’ll start with the funny acronym. DLC stands for downloadable content. That’s anything additional you can download to enhance the game. In some cases, that might be additional characters, additional levels, or additional tools.

For Mario Kart 8, this downloadable content is all in the form of courses. You’ll have access to the same drivers, karts, and power-ups.

The courses themselves are repurposed from your favorite Mario Kart games of old. That includes Mario Kart courses from Mario Kart Tour (the cell phone version), Wii, N64, 3DS, GBA, and more.

Being able to play your favorite Mario Kart courses again has a number of advantages. For one, you get to see them remastered and in much higher quality. While the old graphics may have their charms, it really is much more pleasant to see the graphics scaled up to your large screens.

For another, you get to keep the new characters, karts, and mechanics you’ve gotten used to over the past few years. As each new Mario Kart tends to have a wider selection of playable characters, going back to play old versions can feel a bit limiting. Now, you can enjoy the old courses with your new favorite racers.

And our other favorite part is unleashing the fun of the Mario Kart Tour tracks. While it’s enjoyable to be able to play Mario Kart on the phone, the phone doesn’t replace the visceral experience of having a controller in your hands and the game on the screen. Given how many of Mario Kart Tour’s tracks feature real-world places like Paris and Sydney, being able to see the details is all the more fun.

You didn’t think all this fun would be free, did you? (Because I did when I first heard about it.)

Instead, there are two ways to get these sweet new-ish tracks onto your Switch.

Option 1 - Purchase the whole Booster Course Pass for $25. You can do this online via your Switch. This is a one-time fee. Once you pay for it, you’ll be able to download all the courses that have been released. Then on release days, you’ll get a notification that an update is ready to be downloaded.

Option 2 - Sign up for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. This costs $50 for a one-year Individual Membership and $80 for a one-year Family Membership. In addition to the Booster Course Pass (what more could you want?), you’ll also have access to NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, and N64 Games.

It depends on your attitudes toward subscriptions. Value-wise, Nintendo Switch Online offers a lot. In the same way you might justify paying $17 for Netflix because that’s what it costs to see a movie in theaters and you know you’ll use it at least two hours a month, Nintendo Switch Online gives you access to more games than you could realistically play.

The issue is when you start to stack all those subscriptions. Spotify, Netflix, Nintendo, Xbox, Amazon… Now it’s harder to know if each month you’re using it up.

For simplicity’s sake, I chose the Mario Kart 8 Booster Course Pass download. Even if I were to later enroll in Nintendo Switch Online, I’d feel like I got my money’s worth.

Yeah. It’s really fun!

(Oh, you mean, why is it worth it?)

Look. I’ve been playing Mario Kart since it was on SNES. Then I played other games. Then I played it again on most of the systems – but not all, like Gameboy Advance. Mario Kart 8’s Booster Course Pass is not just a way to relive the nostalgia of old systems. It really does feel like an expansion of this current game. 

Nintendo hasn’t announced the release dates for the last three waves, so let’s take a look and see if we can guess based on the past dates.

Mario Kart 8 Wave 1 - Friday, March 18, 2022

Mario Kart 8 Wave 2 - Thursday, August 4, 2022

Mario Kart 8 Wave 3 - Wednesday, December 7, 2022

So far, there’s been between four and five months for each wave. The days of the week seem to be going backward, and the most recent came out during the first week of the month (could this process be any more scientific?). 

Given that there are three Mario Kart waves left to release, this is our best guess as to the breakdown:

Mario Kart Wave 4 - Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Mario Kart Wave 5 - Monday, August 7, 2023

Mario Kart Wave 6 - Friday, December 1, 2023

Sorry to be the banana peel in the middle of your day, but Mario Kart 9 isn’t going to be out for a while. 

If we consider that there will be new courses for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe until the very end of 2023, then our best hopes for Mario Kart 9 will be in time for 2024. In some ways, that could be a fitting time, as it would be the 10-year anniversary of Mario Kart 8.

Until then, enjoy the new courses!