Theme park designers are always looking for ways to keep guests coming back, and it seems that Super Nintendo World‘s Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge ride could offer an exciting way to do just that. The ride is built on a video game engine, which allows the designers to make easy modifications. At a press conference attended by IGN, Universal Creative senior vice president, chief creative officer Thierry Coup revealed that there are a lot of different ways that the ride can be updated. This could come in the form of new racers, or even timed content to coincide with special events.
“Because it’s in a game engine, we can keep updating, upgrading, putting new characters [in], changing themes, changing actions on the fly. So if there’s a special event, anything we want to release can be done overnight if we really wanted to. That makes it so much more flexible – it freshens up the experience. Every time you come back you could experience something new and exciting,” said Coup.
It’s not difficult to imagine some interesting ways this could be implemented! After all, Mario Kart Tour has featured limited time events related to various holidays, and that could work in the ride, as well. Of course, Koopa’s Challenge could also be used to promote upcoming games on Nintendo Switch. Link appeared in Mario Kart 8, so maybe the character could appear in the ride as a tie-in with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2! Super Nintendo World doesn’t have any Zelda content yet, so this could be the perfect way to add Link, even if it is just for a limited time.
For now, Nintendo fans will just have to wait and see what comes next. Super Nintendo World is clearly seen as a way for Nintendo to grow the popularity of its characters and brands. Using the park as a big advertisement for Nintendo Switch games would be a brilliant way to do just that, but the park just opened earlier this month, so it might be too early to speculate. Regardless, it’s a safe bet that Universal Studios Japan and Nintendo will come up with lots of interesting ways to keep fans coming back!
Would you like to see Super Nintendo World continually update the Mario Kart ride? What are some ways you think this would work best? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk about all things gaming!
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