Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass (DLC)

The Booster Course Pass is exactly what it sounds like: a massive track injection for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that doubles the game's course count from 48 to 96. Delivered across six waves between March 2022 and November 2023, it pulls remastered circuits from every corner of the series' history - SNES, N64, GBA, GameCube, DS, Wii, 3DS, and even the mobile spin-off Mario Kart Tour. Twelve new Grand Prix cups, eight new characters including long-overdue additions like Birdo, Diddy Kong, and Funky Kong, and a batch of Mii Racing Suits round out the package. If you have been sitting on a mostly-done save file, this is a very good reason to boot the game back up. For couch sessions, this is where the pass shines hardest. Every one of those 96 courses is available in local split-screen, and the track variety alone guarantees that Saturday night tournament energy stays alive way longer than it used to. Wii Coconut Mall causes the usual chaos. DS Waluigi Pinball hits the nostalgia button so hard it physically hurts. N64 Kalimari Desert, GCN Waluigi Stadium, and the Wii and 3DS versions of Rainbow Road are all back and running in crisp HD thanks to MK8's lighting engine. Picking a random cup and seeing what drops is genuinely exciting when you have a crowd on the sofa. Now for the honest bit: the Tour-sourced tracks are the pass's weak link, and the community has been pretty vocal about it. Courses ported from the mobile game carry flatter textures and noticeably less visual detail than the base game circuits. More critically, they make lighter use of MK8's anti-gravity mechanic, which is the thing that makes this game feel so kinetic. The real-world city tracks - Paris Promenade, Tokyo Blur, London Loop, Amsterdam Drift, and others - do the clever thing of routing you down a slightly different path on each lap, which softens the repetition, but a few of them (London Loop in particular) feel like filler next to a course like Yoshi's Island or the genuinely wild Squeaky Clean Sprint, a bathroom-themed new track that earns its place through sheer creativity and hidden shortcuts. Quality also fluctuated across the six waves. Wave 1 was a safe, unspectacular opener. Waves 4 and 6 were the high points, with Wave 4's Yoshi's Island track landing as an instant all-time classic and Wave 6 closing things out with GCN DK Mountain, Wii Rainbow Road, and Piranha Plant Cove. The DLC team clearly found its footing as the waves progressed, with later entries integrating anti-gravity sections more confidently and going back to tweak earlier courses based on fan feedback. The pass as a completed package lands considerably better than any individual wave might suggest. Bottom line for the group: you only need one copy of the pass for online Friends and Rivals races - your friends without it can still race on the new courses when you host, which removes a big barrier for party nights. Hardcore solo players who want the full 150cc and 200cc grind across all 96 tracks will get serious mileage here. Casual players who just want more banana-peel chaos with friends will find plenty to love, even if the odd Tour track makes the room go quiet for thirty seconds. It is not a flawless expansion, but as a completed set it is one of the better DLC packages Nintendo has shipped for any game.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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