On 24th September 2019, Nintendo launched Mario Kart Tour for mobile devices. This was Mario’s second outing in mobile gaming, following 2016’s Super Mario Run, which had an impressive initial reception but seemingly failed to generate much revenue (compared with other big mobile games, including Nintendo’s own Fire Emblem Heroes).

Mario Kart Tour aimed to change that, built with mobile player expectations in mind, and ultimately proved more successful than Super Mario Run at the time. So it's ironic then that Mario Run is still getting updates while Tour will end service on Wednesday 30th September 2026.

And I have weird feelings about it.

The long drive

I have been playing Mario Kart Tour daily since its launch seven years ago.

Every Tuesday, I would spend an hour in bed before sleeping, trying to top the weekly rankings and get those precious Rubies. I would play it while commuting on the train or during lunch. I’d go through every cup, do every challenge, and slowly build up my characters and karts until they reached their maximum potential (Level 8 with variable score depending on their rank). It was a big part of my life through the COVID days, when moving house and city, and even through career changes.

I’ve been playing Mario Kart Tour this whole time, so it’s odd knowing that I won’t be able to anymore - and not by my own choice.

On the other hand, it’s also kind of a relief. While Tour is closing down now, it stopped adding new content a long time ago. Aside from a single tour that dropped to promote Mario Kart World in 2025, Mario Kart Tour officially stopped getting new content on 4th October 2023. From then on, it just repeated and recycled everything it had already set up for addicted fans like me.

So there was nothing new for me to see in this game, yet I was still putting in the hours every week, and these are hours I will never get back, but will finally have free again. Maybe hours I will put towards my intimidating backlog (Silksong has been staring at me for over a year now).

Even though I’m relieved to be getting that time back, it was obviously fun playing this game even without anything new from Nintendo. I would’ve stopped playing if it was boring. While many might see nothing new being added and lose motivation to keep playing, for me it meant the game had a real endpoint to work toward, since there was still plenty of content I hadn’t unlocked.

By nature of the gacha system (until it was removed), unlocking unique racers, karts, and gliders depended on luck, and I am not a very lucky person. So instead of needing new content, I felt I had all the time in the world to unlock everything and eventually have a complete Mario Kart Tour file. Then, for sure, I would stop playing knowing I’ve got another Mario Kart game fully completed.

Now this will never happen, and that brings out another emotion in me: anger.

Too Fast, Too Furious

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is to blame. I got into Animal Crossing’s mobile outing when they announced it was ending service, as I thought I should at least give it a go.

And I’m glad I waited because I got really into it; how little free time I would have had if I'd been playing Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, and Fire Emblem Heroes daily… I don’t want to think about it.

Another benefit of starting Pocket Camp late was that Nintendo had already announced an offline Complete edition. None of my decorating, befriending villagers, doing missions, and unlocking features felt wasteful because I had this permanent save file I could dip into whenever I wanted. It was just like a regular Animal Crossing game. And while Nintendo didn’t do this for Miitomo or Dragalia Lost, I was sure that with Mario of all franchises, an offline edition was a given. I would have infinite time to master it fully.

As it turns out, an offline mode for Mario Kart Tour wasn't in the cards. Seven years of hard work, those three years of continuous play post-final-content release, will soon all be gone. And that really sucks.

This isn’t anything new for players of live service games. Dragalia Lost fans have already dealt with this. Fortunately, I never really got into Dragalia Lost, and with other mobile gacha games, if it didn’t have 'Nintendo' on it, I didn’t feel motivated to play!

So Mario Kart Tour’s service shutting down is the first time I’m experiencing a loss of content like this - equivalent to a save file being deleted, but when that happens, it’s often my fault or a hardware error. This is Nintendo taking away the rewards for my time and effort, and that really annoys me.

Into Nintendo’s garage it goes

These last few months of play have been really demoralising - not helped by the fact that this end-of-service period has been restricted to the summer. It immediately thwarted my goal of getting every driver. Even if I took advantage of the extremely generous resources handed out over the last few months, drivers like Hiker Wario and Party Time Lakitu — who are limited to Fall and Winter months — were no longer obtainable. My first goal was to get at least every driver, but that wasn't achievable. So what was the point now?

The loss hits harder when you consider what Mario Kart Tour actually gave us. A lot of fans were put off by it being on mobile and didn’t give it the time of day, but because it was a mobile game, Nintendo needed a steady stream of content, and that gave us some great original additions to the series. Dixie Kong, King Bob-omb, and fan-favourite Poochy all made their racing debut here and won’t be playable in Mario Kart anymore after the service shuts down.

Kamek was also part of this group, but at least he made it into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in its Booster Course Pass DLC, which also aimed to bring over as many of the original courses introduced in Tour as possible. They did a good job bringing these courses to more players, with my favourites, Yoshi’s Island and Ninja Hideaway, making the cut, but not every stage got that treatment.

A handful of SNES-styled ‘remix’ tracks were pretty simple but offered original layouts: RMX Vanilla Lake 2 even gave us a big old Igloo to drive through and over, which helped it stay memorable. The biggest loss, however, is Piranha Plant Pipeline, the only fully original course to remain locked to Tour. Anyone who wants to race on it now — or very soon at the time of writing — simply cannot, and that sucks a lot.

I haven't even gotten into the miles-long car lot of new and returning karts and gliders this game added. Fun designs themed around real-world vehicles, like a double-decker bus kart, and fun Mario references like 8-bit gliders. Even fans get so focused on the drivers and courses that they forget just how much content Mario Kart Tour takes with it. It's hugely disappointing.

Mario Kart Tour has been my seven-year-long tour, and I wish I were coming out of it with clear, positive emotions, but instead my heart is like a mixing pot of feelings. I have no regrets; I had an absolute blast with it, actually playing the game but also being a part of the active community that would discuss and speculate on what the series might be adding. Did you know there was a point when everyone was convinced Baby Wario and Baby Donkey Kong were definitely happening any day now? Good times.

But despite my positive feelings towards the game and its community, I’m still left with the bitter taste of disappointment at the end of it all. Disappointment for what the game could have been (I really think they dropped the ball with the ratio of new drivers to costumes) and disappointment for how Nintendo has ultimately treated it. MK Tour is being abandoned. Those of us with seven years on record receive nothing but a “Thanks for Playing!”

And I haven’t learned anything from it because I’m still playing Fire Emblem Heroes. Surely that one will get an offline version at the end of it all… right?