Mario Kart World update 1.7.0 adds new Knockout Tour routes and quietly tweaks first-place items

Mario Kart World's version 1.7.0 dropped on July 1, bringing the game's first-ever new Knockout Tour rally routes alongside a quiet but notable change to how items work in the opening seconds of a race. It's the most substantial update the Switch 2 launch title has seen in a while, even if it still falls short of what many players have been asking for.

The two new routes are Drill Rally, connecting Wario Shipyard to Bowser's Castle, and Boomerang Rally, running from Salty Salty Speedway to Whistlestop Summit. Beyond that, the patch buffs low-acceleration characters and vehicles, improves gliding speeds, adds a new ramp on the Airship Fortress to Bowser's Castle route, and introduces sticker support in Photo Mode. The most eyebrow-raising change, though, isn't in the patch notes at all: players are reporting that for the first 20 seconds of a race, even first-place drivers are picking up strong items like Triple Mushrooms and Boo — a meaningful departure from Mario Kart's long-standing tradition of punishing the leader with coins and bananas. Nintendo hasn't officially acknowledged the tweak.

Mario Kart World launched alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 and sold 14.7 million copies in its first nine months, according to Nintendo's own financial data from March 2026. That's a remarkable number, but it's made the lack of new tracks all the more conspicuous — after a full year on the market, not a single new race track has been added. The series has historically kept players engaged with regular drops of classic course remakes and new content, so the silence on that front has been a genuine sore point in the community. The undocumented item change does suggest Nintendo is at least experimenting with the game's balance under the hood.

Nintendo has only teased that more Knockout Tour routes are coming, without giving any dates or details. Whether a proper track pack is in the pipeline remains unknown — the company is staying quiet. Community reaction to the item tweak has ranged from surprised to genuinely excited, with players sharing clips of unusually powerful early-race pickups online.