Mario Kart Tour has been on the appstore for little over 24 hours, but fans have already noticed one missing feature – human opponents. Despite the unique usernames, all the races you’ve narrowly won, and racers flinging blue shells at you have all been fake, with multiplayer “coming soon”.
While Nintendo has made no formal comment on the matter, they confirmed in Gamespot’s report that the other racers are indeed bots. Suspicions were initially raised when players noticed there was no way to be in the same race as a friend, how quick it is to find a race, and the abnormally low difficulty.
Confusingly, Nintendo seems to be trying to hide this lack of multiplayer by giving CPU racers fake usernames, and still having the player enter a lobby when a course is selected. At the time of writing, there is no set date of the multiplayer update. Aggravating the issue is fact that the game is online only, meaning you can’t race once you’ve run out of data or don’t have access to WiFi.
Mario Kart Tour has also been generating buzz over its monthly membership system, which for $4.99 a month will unlock the faster 200cc mode and some cosmetic items. Despite this, the kart racer is shaping up to be another success in Nintendo’s mobile library. Mario Kart Tour has already smashed Pokémon GO’s record, with 10.1 million downloads, up from 6.7 million.
