The new Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC has made a strange change to a fan-favorite course. This week, the first wave of the Booster Course Pass was released, adding eight different tracks from the series’ past to the Nintendo Switch game. One of these courses, Coconut Mall, had a surprise upgrade, but it looks like it has a surprise change as well. If you noticed something slightly different about Coconut Mal in Mario Kart 8 other than its improved graphics, it’s because Nintendo made a peculiar change to the course without telling anybody.
For those that don’t know: Coconut Mall is the second course of the Flower Cup introduced with Mario Kart Wii. One of the most popular courses from Mario Kart Wii, it’s now back, but the cars no longer move. They are parked. Why? We don’t know, but of course, the Internet has used it as an opportunity to make jokes about gas prices.
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At the moment, it appears this is the only real change Nintendo has made to the course, making even stranger. Of course, it’s possible this is a bug, but if it is, Nintendo hasn’t said as much. Whatever the case, the change has made the track worse and easier.
If this is an intentional change, it’s one Nintendo is not going to revert and it may indicate more changes down the road to other courses. Speaking of future courses, while Nintendo has yet to announce the next wave of courses — or any other future wave — we do know some of the courses coming to the game before the end of 2023 thanks to a new datamining leak.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is available via the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch OLED, and the Nintendo Switch Lite. Right now, there’s still no official word of the next Mario Kart game, but its name and first details did recently leak.
As always, feel free to share your thoughts and hot-takes in the comments section or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. What do you think of this random change to Mario Kart 8?
