Update

Mario Kart Tour set up to remove all of the gacha elements and premium paywalls in the coming months

Mario Kart Tour set up to remove all of the gacha elements and premium paywalls in the coming months
|
| Mario Kart Tour

Nintendo’s popular racing game Mario Kart Tour, a sort of mobile adaptation of Mario Kart, has announced that it will be removing all of the gacha elements present within the game right now and replacing the pipe system with a Spotlight Shop. This will remove a lot of the RNG-based elements of the game and make it a bit fairer and a bit less money-hungry.

This new shop will let you use rubies - the in-game currency earnable by simply playing - to get karts, drivers, and gliders as well. Being able to purchase all of these cool items simply by playing rather than having to drop real money is always good news, and makes Mario Kart Tour less of a gacha game and more of a racing game first.

yt
Subscribe to Pocket Gamer on

These changes will kick in later this month alongside the addition of the Battle mode being added to both Singleplayer and Multiplayer on October 5th. Battle mode will see you racing with balloons attached to everyone’s karts, with the goal being to pop those balloons and protect your own using items and ramming each other. This adds a cool new spin on the typical “be the first to complete the race” objective.

Even better is the removal of the Gold Races, which were previously only available to Gold Pass subscribers, adding yet another premium paywall to the game. Now, those will be exiled, and all races can be attended by any player of Mario Kart Tour, further removing the somewhat money-based ways the game tried to get you to bust out your wallet.

In all honesty, this is all phenomenal news, especially coming from a company that is somewhat known to be a bit hesitant to remove any premium features from their mobile games. It inspires a lot of faith in Nintendo, and will surely attract an even bigger audience for Mario Kart Tour.

All of these changes will be happening within the next month or two, so if you’d like to try it out yourself, you can download Mario Kart Tour for free at either of the links below this article!

Mario Kart Tour icon
Download now!

Looking for more high-speed thrills? Check out our Top 25 best racing games for Android!
Connor Derrick
Connor Derrick
Connor is a diehard JRPG fan and an equally diehard fan of writing. When he isn’t putting 100+ hours into the latest Atlus release, he’s playing board games with his partner or blasting a mid-2000s punk record. Music, film, writing, and games are his biggest passions, and he hopes to one day unite all of those in some way or another.