Mario Kart World Update 1.7.0 Adds New Rallies and Stickers

New routes, sticker features, and what this means for the game's future content plans.

Mario Kart World is getting some new love, and fans have plenty to dig into with this latest patch. Before diving into what's new, it's worth addressing something a lot of players have been vocal about: the pace of content drops. Mario Kart World isn't a live service title, so it was never going to pump out fresh events or modes every few weeks.

This is a standard release, and updates will roll out whenever the team decides they're ready, not on some scheduled calendar. With that out of the way, let's break down what Version 1.7.0 actually brings to Mario Kart World. The biggest addition is two new routes for the Knockout Tour.

The mode where twenty-four racers compete across a massive stretch of the game's world map. Every checkpoint you hit narrows the field further, and if you're not near the front by the time you reach one of the five checkpoints, you're eliminated. It's a tense, elimination-style format that rewards consistency over a single lucky lap.

The two fresh routes joining the Knockout Tour are Drill Rally and Boomerang Rally. Drill Rally links Wario Shipyard with Bowser's Castle, giving racers a new path between two fan-favorite locations. Boomerang Rally, meanwhile, connects Salty Salty Speedway with Whistle Stop Summit.

Both routes won't be available right away, though; you'll need to complete at least one Knockout Tour race before either one unlocks. And this isn't the end of it either, since more Knockout Tour routes are already planned for upcoming updates down the line.

Photo Mode also got some attention in this patch.

Players can now decorate their screenshots with stickers they've unlocked, and these can be layered together with frames for more personalized shots. Whether you're using touch controls or the Joy-Con 2's mouse functionality, placing these stickers is simple enough for anyone to pick up.

This should be a nice touch for the players who love capturing those perfect finish-line moments or chaotic multi-kart pileups. Even though this content is technically free, plenty of people still feel underwhelmed by how slowly things are rolling out.

That criticism makes sense, especially given the price tag attached to this release and the more expensive hardware it runs on. But there's reason to believe the real payoff is still ahead. The expectation is that Version 2.0 will be the moment everything changes, bringing a much bigger content overhaul than anything seen so far.

That said, don't expect it this year; next year looks far more likely for something on that scale. The pattern seems to be shaping up like this: smaller additions, like new Knockout Tour routes, throughout the remainder of this year, followed by a heavier DLC push and possibly new characters sometime next year. 

It's not out of the question that extra characters or bonus content could still show up before the year ends.

However, the major expansion-level material seems destined for a later release window. Looking back at how Mario Kart 8 Deluxe evolved offers a useful comparison. When it launched in 2014 on the Wii U, it was a pretty stripped-down package, even more so than how Mario Kart World debuted.

Content got layered in gradually, and even the Nintendo Switch port received upgrades, including new items and fixes to Battle Mode. It actually took roughly five years before that game received a full batch of new courses, largely because sales stayed strong the entire time.

So the version of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe most people remember fondly wasn't the launch version at all. It took years of steady updates to become the definitive edition people associate with the franchise now. Given that history, it's reasonable to expect Mario Kart World won't take quite as long to hit its stride.

It's still likely to follow a similar formula of gradual updates followed by a larger content dump somewhere down the road. Unlike its predecessor, though, this release carries an $80 price tag and lives on pricier hardware, which explains why some fans expected more right out of the gate.

For casual players who just want to race with family occasionally, none of this really changes the experience much.

But for the more competitive crowd who invested heavily in Mario Kart World at full price, the desire for faster, bigger updates is completely understandable. Most people picked this title up either through the Choose Your Game bundle or the standalone Nintendo Switch 2 bundle, so expectations are naturally higher.

There's still a chance that bigger DLC gets announced before the year wraps up, even if it doesn't actually launch until next year. Nothing is confirmed either way, and predictions about a major DLC drop happening this year now seem less likely than originally thought. What does seem certain is that Mario Kart World is built to have staying power, with more content planned well beyond this single update.