Nintendo opened Mario Kart Tour's multiplayer feature up to all of the game's players this week, but the beta did not stick around for very long.
Mario Kart Tour, the franchise's first foray into the mobile market, arrived to mixed fanfare back in September of 2019. One of the things its millions of players were puzzled by was their fellow racers. All of them were AI, and clicking on the multiplayer option merely informed players that the feature would be coming soon.
The first players to get a taste of multiplayer Mario Kart Tour were Gold Pass subscribers. However, this week Tour's second multiplayer beta was opened up to any and all players of the game, so we thought we would give it a whirl. First thing's first, the beta did not stick around for long and the test has already closed, so if you wanted to try it out for yourselves, that chance has already passed.
Before we get into the meat of what we learned, it should be reiterated that this was a beta test. The whole point of it is to flush out problems and see what works. That being said, we weren't impressed. Nintendo had already revealed that players would be matched with others in the "immediate vicinity." What area that covers is still unclear, but it does not include people you might be in the room with as there is still no option to race with your friends.
As for the people you will race against, Tour appears to find the hunt for them pretty challenging. The wait before and after each race was a long one which wasn't great considering the beta's limited runtime. There were also no rewards for winning a race, or even any real recognition of your achievement. As soon as everyone had finished, the game would jump straight to the next race.
The wait time is likely down to the game trying to sync up the eight racers which can be tricky on mobile. Even then, fellow racers tended to jump around on the track, making item hits a lot harder to come by than they should be. Nintendo has a lot of work to do when it comes to Tour's multiplayer, or at least we hope it does. Because of this, we're not expecting a permanent rollout of the feature to come anytime soon.