Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's Booster Course Pass Needs More Original Content

gamerant.com:

Nintendo doesn't have a lengthy track record when it comes to post-launch DLC. Back in the day, when Nintendo wanted to expand upon the ideas in a recently released title, it'd just keep working on them internally, before putting all of those ideas into a fully-fledged sequel. Nowadays, in light of the trend towards live-service games, Nintendo has adopted a new approach, whereby new titles often receive updates post-launch that add some new content to the game. Recently, Nintendo's Mario Sports series has come under a lot of fire for having a lack of content on launch, which is then added in later with a handful of updates. However, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has plenty of content right out of the gate, making its DLC feel much more justified.

A February Nintendo Direct announced that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was set to receive 48 new tracks as paid DLC, in an expansion called the Booster Course Pass. Rather than releasing them all at once, Nintendo is spacing out the release of these new tracks into six distinct waves, bringing eight new courses to the game with each one. The first wave dropped in March 2022, and its track selection was received positively across the board. The second wave will drop in just a few days, and aside from some re-imagined tracks, this wave also includes one brand new, original track, which sets an interesting precedent going forward.

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While wave one of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass was met with generally positive reviews, its eight tracks all came from earlier entries in the franchise, with three coming from the divisive mobile game Mario Kart Tour. While most of the tracks in this wave did fit Mario Kart 8's gameplay, and they were all