Mario Kart World: How To Play Classic 3-Lap Races

Big changes have made their way into Mario Kart World, with one of the biggest being the most unexpected. Courses in Mario Kart have never felt more different. That's because of the open-world nature of the game, meaning courses are connected to each other. And in all game modes, this is the default racing method — race from one course to another, rather than doing three full laps of a track.

But there are ways to turn courses into that three-lap extravaganza that Mario Kart is known for. Here's how to play a classic 3-Lap format race in Mario Kart World, both offline and online with friends.

How to play traditional 3-Lap Races in Mario Kart World

The transitional laps in Mario Kart World have become a bit of a hot topic, but you don't have to race them, even online. Let's go over just how you can swap back to that original format.

If you're playing with friends couch co-op or wireless play — aka, 'offline' — or just fancy going around the same course against NPcs in the old-school format, then head to VS Mode. There, you can select the rules for how you want to play: Frantic Items, difficulty, cc, etc.

When you get to the map screen, you'll be able select which course you want to race in. Once you've chosen, you'll get a list of options and other course names — essentially, these are all the tracks that your chosen course connects to.

For a traditional 3-Lap race, however, you want to select the same course a second time. So, if you picked Salty Salty Speedway on the map, select it a second time on the list. Then, when the race starts, you'll see the normal course map with Lap 1/3 (or more for some courses like Koopa Troopa Beach) on screen.

We suppose you could just race around a course with friends in Free Roam mode, but that's probably not ideal...

Can you do 3-Lap races online?

You can — but there's no guarantee it'll be a 3-lap race.

Early on in Mario Kart World's life, players resorted to picking the 'Random' option, as this would guarantee (if chosen at random) you would race on a traditional 3-lap course.

Nintendo initially decreased the frequency of these types of races, but as of Version 1.3.0, the Big N has increased "the frequency of lap-type courses appearing in the selection" in both wireless multiplayer and VS race.

Can you have classic 3-Lap races in Grand Prix Mode?

Sadly not at the moment! Right now, Grand Prix follows a similar format/layout to Knockout Tour in that you'll start from one course and move onto another. You'll only ever do one lap of a course in Grand Prix, with all other laps being intermission tracks.

We wonder if Nintendo will add this as a feature later down the line, because it seems to be fairly missed by fans. We'll see!

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