Some interesting tidbits about Mario Kart World‘s new interconnected map have surfaced online.

Firstly, in an interview with The Verge, Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki producer revealed that the “world” the game takes place in is not the Mushroom Kingdom, despite including many locations that look similar. The map was designed specifically for the game, and is presumably not an accurate representation of the “canon” Mushroom Kingdom that appears in other titles.

“As you travel through this world, you will see things that remind you of the Mushroom Kingdom. 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.”

He also discussed the amount of work that went into building this interconnected map, a first in the series.

“We knew when we came up with this idea that it really would be a big change for the series, 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.

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, 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.”

To illustrate just how big the interconnected map actually is, various media outlets who got a hands-on trial of the game have learned that it takes approximately 9 minutes to travel from one end of the map to the other in free-roam mode.

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