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The Verge
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Mario Kart World's designers had to rethink everything to make it open world
From the very beginning, the goal for Mario Kart World was ambitious. A follow-up to the Switch's (and Wii U's) best-selling game, one that steadily grew over the years, World 's original concept focused on two key changes: doubling the amount of racers, and creating a connected, open world for players to explore. It was so big that, early on in development for the original Switch, the team was having a hard time making it work on the hardware, and eventually it shifted to become the main launch title for the more powerful Switch 2. But even outside of technical issues, those changes meant a fundamental rethink of many of Mario Kart 's core elements. 'We knew when we came up with this idea that it really would be a big change for the series,' says producer Kosuke Yabuki, 'but we had no idea at the time how many people, how much time, and how much effort that would require to actually achieve it.' The most obvious change is right there in the title: it's the world. Instead of a series of individual racetracks, all of Mario Kart World 's courses take place on the same landmass, connected by a series of routes. The game isn't set in an existing version of the Mushroom Kingdom, but instead a brand-new location that has been designed from the ground-up around the idea of racing. 'As you travel through this world, you will see things that remind you of the Mushroom Kingdom,' Yabuki explains. 'Elements like the question mark blocks or warp pipes. In terms of world design, I would say this world was designed for Mario Kart World. If you look at the height of a mountain, or the length of a desert, those were all things that we decided specifically for this title.' According to Yabuki – who previously worked on both Mario Kart 7 and 8, and served as producer on the Switch fighter Arms – unlike many open worlds, the game wasn't designed to be a recreation of a realistic or believable place. He says that 'we have to think about not simply recreating real-world patterns in terms of a town or an island. Rather, this world exists purely to make Mario Kart more fun.' Building the world wasn't difficult purely because it was larger than past games, but also because of that connected nature. As Yabuki explains it, when one element of the world was changed, it had a cascading effect that could impact other parts of the world as well. 'If you change the height of a mountain you have to think about whether you've diminished its usefulness in the surrounding areas as a landmark, for example,' Yabuki says. 'This means that in the end terrain design is actually quite a difficult task, because if you change one thing, you have to adjust many more.' This influenced the way the race tracks themselves were designed. In previous Mario Kart games, the developers had more control over how players were able to view the courses, because they were racing along pre-defined roads and paths. But that's no longer the case. 'You used to be designing courses with the notion that people are going to drive and look in a very few fixed directions that we know ahead of time,' Yabuki says, 'compared to Mario Kart World, where people might enter a course from anywhere, or leave that course from anywhere, and continue driving. So we have to think about those entry and exit points, and how they affect the player's vantage. In that sense, Mario Kart World course design is quite a bit more work compared to previous games.' What is on Toad's head? In 2018, Super Mario Odyssey producer Yoshiaki Koizumi confirmed a long-debated fact: the mushroom on Toad's head is actually his head, and not a hat. But Toad's appearance in Mario Kart World, in which he's wearing a racing helmet, raises a new question as to what the helmet actually is. Unfortunately, like in some of my past Mario-related investigations, I was unable to get a definitive answer on this. 'When it comes to Toad, there really are a lot of secrets about this character, and I have to say not all of them are mine to share,' Yabuki told me. 'But I would like for you, when you play the game, to consider when Toad is wearing a helmet, sometimes he'll have that transform and you'll see suddenly it's a hamburger. So I want you to think about that moment and what your personal theory about Toad's head might be.' The expansiveness similarly had an impact on the game's structure. For one thing, it inspired an all-new mode called Knockout Tour, where players are racing across the entire continent, while their numbers steadily dwindle, sort of like a Mario Kart take on battle royale. It also introduced a notable change for the classic Grand Prix mode, as now players have to drive to their next race, instead of being automatically transported. Yabuki says that one of the inspirations behind this change was the concept of kishōtenketsu, a four-part story structure used for everything from poetry to comic strips. 'First you introduce an idea, you let it develop, then you have a turn, and then you have a conclusion,' Yabuki says of the structure. 'We tried to follow that kind of thinking. The start of the Grand Prix is that first frame of a four-panel comic, for example, and you're going to have moments along the way as you develop, and then you have a turn, and a conclusion. In order to allow those moments to breathe, you have to think about the difficulty of each step. So when you're driving from one course to the next, you have more freedom, there's a little bit more latitude, and it's purposefully not as difficult, to give some variation in that pace so that the feeling can develop.' It's not just the world that has gotten bigger, but the number of participating racers as well. World has doubled the number per race from 12 to 24. It wasn't as simple as adding more players, as the additional racers created balance issues with multiple elements of the game, which Yabuki says forced the development team to 'reconsider all elements from their fundamentals' in order to accommodate everyone. 'We had to consider as varied elements as the road width, the kart size, or even things like when a player is hit by a shell, how much speed do they lose? How much speed do they lose with other types of collisions? All of these things had to be considered from scratch to balance,' he explains. One thing that hasn't changed is just how weird the game can be. Recent Mario adventures have taken a turn for the surreal, but strangeness has always been a part of the franchise's DNA. This is, after all, a game where eating mushrooms and flowers gives you superpowers, and the new Mario Kart lets you race as everything from a cow to a Goomba. So when Yabuki was trying to convince the team on one of World 's more out-there ideas — that eating food at a diner gives your character a whole new look — he was able to point back to some of the older Mario titles. 'We've always had some really interesting and weird precedents that we could draw from,' he says. 'When I was trying to explain the concept of eating something and having a costume change, sometimes in order to persuade them I would say 'look, it's the sort of thing we used to do.''
The Verge
2 days ago
- Business
- The Verge
After the former Microsoft game studio behind
Tango Gameworks relaunches with a new look. Hi-Fi Rush was spared from closure last year, Tango Gameworks now has a new website and updated branding. The studio is hiring for multiple positions and says its redesigned look and logo represent its vision as a 'creative workshop' for creating games that feel 'handmade with soul.'
BBC News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Bafta Young Game Designers: Meet the children up for a gaming award
Bafta have unveiled the talented finalists who have been selected for this year's Young Game Designers (YGD) event is in its 15th year and 52 young people - aged between 12 and 18 - have been chosen by top industry experts to take competition celebrates and encourages young people to create, develop and present their ideas for winners ceremony will be live-streamed on Bafta's YouTube channel, on Wednesday 18 June. How does the Young Game Designers award work? The awards are split into two categories - the Game Concept Award, for a written idea for a new game, and the Game Making Award, for a game made using computer are two awards available for each category, for young people aged 10 to 14 and another for those aged between 15 to winners are chosen by a jury of industry professionals who are looking for well thought-out game ideas and impressive use of coding. In the 10-14 Game Concept Category, 12-year-old Arabelle is among the game, titled Reef Revival, involves players helping a character - called Spongy - rediscover his home after a terrible needs to collect valuable items on the way to revive the coral that surrounds him. Arabelle says that she was inspired by the environment, and that she wanted to make the game "fun and exciting, while teaching the importance of protecting marine life". Meanwhile in the 10-14 Game Making Category, Daniel's space themed adventure is one of the shortlisted game called 'Planet Drop' is all about creating the ultimate drop planets to merge them into ever bigger celestial bodies, trying to create a supermassive planets combine to form new planets, and players need to make their drops in the right places to ensure they don't block winning games will be displayed at the Power Up exhibition at the Science Museum in London, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester and at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford in June.
ABC News
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
How 30 years of Warcraft has taken Australian developer Darren Williams from Adelaide to Azeroth
Darren Williams remembers watching his dad moving fantasy characters across the screen of their home computer 30 years ago in Adelaide. They'd sit together as his father played Warcraft, commanding battles of orcs, goblins, knights and mages across a medieval land, constructing bases and gathering resources to amass the strongest army. Williams fell in love with real-time strategy (RTS) games, and his dad encouraged him to play, even though he wasn't very good at first. He played the video game series developed by Blizzard Entertainment for years, all through high school and into university, where he was studying engineering. "I had the realisation, 'Hey, engineering is a way you can make games. I want to make games,' and Blizzard games were my favourite." Now, years after watching his dad play, Williams is working on the same series. Williams spent hours building and learning the systems of the game alongside his university studies. The games shipped with their own campaign and map editors, allowing players to build custom scenarios or characters and upload them to the web for other people to enjoy. "It was so cool to realise the tools that game developers were using to build these games were available to players," he says. Warcraft III was particularly influential for Williams, who says it was "a gateway". "I'd follow games reporting and study how others built things, studying computer-programming languages used in the games in my spare time." The follow-up to Warcraft III was World of Warcraft (WoW), first launched in 2004. The multiplayer video game changed the genre from strategy to third-person role-playing, and hundreds of players would work together to defeat bosses and complete quests. Williams applied multiple times before successfully securing a job working on WoW around 15 years ago. He now lives in California, where Blizzard has its headquarters. Returning to Australia for the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Warcraft series in Sydney and Melbourne, he says the games have fostered a community of fans across the world. "Ultimately, for World of Warcraft, it is a social experience, right? You're jumping in and sometimes you're doing your own stuff, but you're doing that with a bunch of other people around. You're forming connections, the game connects you with other people," he says. "So when those people get together and meet physically, sometimes for the first time, it's so awesome." Edward Goodwin's path into making games also started as a player; the former professional esports competitor and broadcaster discovered the Warcraft spin-off card game, Hearthstone, in high school. "I was going to school for engineering in college and, about halfway through, I realised that Hearthstone was kind of my main hobby," says Goodwin. "I was getting to the point where I was good enough where I could transition from the engineering degree — which, while very important, was not really what I wanted to do. Instead I could play Hearthstone full-time." Goodwin, who played under the handle Gallon, competed as part of French esports team GamersOrigin around the world. But he never expected to become a game developer. "I don't think I ever set out to be in games. I think [it was] a little bit of like, right place, right time — there was a clear need for them to have someone who had like a super-high-level understanding of the game," says Goodwin. "I got older and my experience with Hearthstone kind of increased and my relationship with the game changed. "I'd done really well at tournaments, it kind of felt like the next logical progression, right?" Goodwin says the team worked hard to make their games fun for lots of different types of players — from professionals to people who are playing for the first time. "These games are for everyone. "With WoW being 20 years old … you'll have people who have played for a decade, two decades and, at the same time, you'll have players where they're literally playing their first game today." While both developers started their studies in engineering, their jobs were ultimately much more creative than most people would expect, with the goal to make the games enjoyable for all sorts of players. "Ultimately, it's very creative: you're taking a blank page, you're writing code and you're making something happen," says Williams. "It's really fun to talk to a designer, they have a lot of cool ideas. It's good to say to them, 'Actually, that idea is possible, we can kind of engineer anything.' "That is the best part about coming to work, working with people with different backgrounds, working with different disciplines and kind of bringing these experiences to life."
The Verge
12-05-2025
- Business
- The Verge
The Overwatch developer team has unionized
The team of nearly 200 Activision Blizzard developers behind the Overwatch franchise has unionized. Formed under the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild is the latest wall-to-wall Blizzard union to be recognized by parent company Microsoft since the World of Warcraft development team announced its own union last July. The CWA announced on Friday that 'an overwhelming majority of workers have either signed a union authorization card or indicated that they wanted union representation.' The Overwatch union unit includes game developers across production, engineering, design, art, sound, and quality assurance, pushing for job security, salary, and layoff protection improvements. 'After a long history of layoffs, crunch, and subpar working conditions in the global video game industry, my coworkers and I are thrilled to be joining the broader union effort to organize our industry for the better, which has been long overdue,' organizing committee member Foster Elmendorf said in the CWA's statement. Allegations that Activision Blizzard fostered a workplace environment of toxicity and sexual harassment emerged following a lawsuit filed by the state of California in 2021, prior to the company being acquired by Microsoft in 2023. Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has denied that the company was responsible for reported abuse concerns and instead blamed the issues on labor organizers. Following its $68.7 billion acquisition by Microsoft, Activision Blizzard agreed to pay $54 million to settle the lawsuit. The CWA says that over 2,600 workers at Microsoft-owned gaming studios have now joined its ranks, including a union formed by 600 quality assurance workers employed at Activision in March 2024. These strings of unionization efforts follow a labor neutrality agreement that was signed between the CWA and Microsoft in 2022 that made it easier for staffers at subsidiaries like Activision Blizzard to organize.
