We used to play Mario Kart.
It was 2003 and the Nintendo GameCube was a full-fledged member of my high school clique. It was at every social gathering, no matter how big or small. I went as far as to buy a carrying case for mine that was big enough to carry a few controllers and all its cords. It rode in the backseat for countless car rides, strapped in just like any normal kid.
Once I got to a friend’s house, unpacking it was always the first priority. It didn’t matter what our plans were for that day. Whether we were there to film a comedy skit, build forts in the woods, or have band practice, the GameCube was getting turned on at some point. We spent years sharpening our skills in Hyrule Castle’s underground fight club. We shot golf balls at the Mushroom Kingdom’s most exclusive country clubs. We terrorized one another with red shells. We weren’t just playing. Every session was an opportunity for us to bond, like two Double Dash swapping turns behind the wheel. We talked through our problems at school and drafted plans for our futures between joyrides down Rainbow Road.
We used to play Mario Kart. We don’t anymore.
Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo
I’ve found myself reflecting on that high school nostalgia ever since the release of Mario Kart World alongside the Nintendo Switch 2. In another era of my life, it would have been a landscape-shifting moment in my social circles. Every weekend would hold a Mario party that rolled across multiple days. Summer would have turned into an endless “LAN Party,” with store brand Mountain Dew fueling long months of well-earned relaxation.
My first month with Mario Kart World was different. Despite the potential for 24-player races and the Switch 2’s new social features, I spent the bulk of my 40 hours with it alone. I curled up on the couch every night after work, free-roaming the Mushroom Kingdom in search of P-Switches. The few proper multiplayer sessions I had across June were spent in online lobbies born from room codes tossed out on Bluesky. I could see my friends’ names above their karts, but we weren’t playing together — at least not in a way that would solidify into a formative memory.
All of this started to set in during a late night Knockout Tour session. I wasn’t just down about not having friends to regularly play with; it connected to a larger anxiety about growing up. My social life is radically different than it used to be. My friends are no longer one quick walk away in a small town. Now in their mid-30s, my pals now have growing families to look after and high-responsibility jobs that can pull them away at a moment’s notice. Our hangouts are less frequent, but the ones that do happen are tightly scheduled. We gather to watch a football game on this day, or come together for a birthday picnic scheduled weeks in advance.
There is less and less flexibility in what we do. Gone are the days of multi-night sleepovers with lots of down time to fill. No minute of a gathering can go to waste when everyone’s time is so limited. You can’t just show up with a GameCube and assume everyone will gather around it at some point. And so, the superfluous joy of a light party game has slipped further and further away from me over the years, a symbol of friendships that are in danger of drifting off the road. If I don’t have 10 minutes to race karts with my loved ones, when are we finding time for the bond-forming heart-to-hearts that so often happened between laps?
Image: Nintendo
All of this was on my mind as I was packing for a vacation one night earlier this month. For the past three years, my friends and I have made it a point to take a trip to Cape Cod once every summer. It’s not so much to get a few days of good beach time in. We lost an important staple of our high school friend group in 2022. He’s buried in a quiet cemetery up there, so we always make a point to visit and pay our respects around the anniversary of his death. It’s always a bittersweet trip. We find new memories of him to share each year, but reflect on how many more slipped away from us. I didn’t get to talk through my career change with him. He never met my girlfriend. We never got to play a round of Mario Kart World together.
So, I did something I hadn’t done since I was a kid: I packed the Nintendo.
I tossed the Nintendo Switch 2, dock, extra controllers, and even the Nintendo Camera into a backpack. I didn’t want my memories of a new console to center around me playing it in isolation; I wanted my loved ones to be part of it. The act of packing it up became a symbol, as I slotted each accessory in my bag between my clothing and toothbrush. These moments only happen if you make space for them.
It didn’t take long for my decision to pay off. As we settled into our weekend home, I mentioned that I had brought my Switch 2 along in case we wanted to play some Mario Kart later. One friend had yet to get his hands on the system at all and wanted a proper tech demo. I set him up with Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour just so he could see the mouse controls in action. I expected him to get bored of it in a few minutes. An hour later, my friends were gathered around the console’s screen, each taking turns at grabbing high score medals in different minigames. In an instant, my initial memory of playing Welcome Tour alone on an airplane tray table was overwritten. In its place was the image of laughing friends competing to take down my scores. In between attempts, I told them about the last six months of my life and how my career was in flux. We played and we talked.
To gather for a local multiplayer session is to tell our loved ones that we’ll always set space aside for them.
Later in the evening, we all gathered around the TV for a bit of Mario Kart World. My mechanical perception of it flipped immediately. Even something as simple as using the Switch Camera to capture our faces during races turned into a collective stand-up routine as each of us tried to find the most ridiculous ways to position the camera. I got to see a friend discover Cow for the first time, a genuine delight I’d only heard about on social media washing over their face. I felt the betrayal of another friend shelling me right at the finish line and zooming past me to finish on top. Every high and low I’d experienced in my first month with Mario Kart World was amplified by the kind of joyful late-night session that I’ve so rarely gotten to experience in adulthood.
All five of us piled into one car the next morning and made the hour-long drive to the cemetery. I joked that I should bring the Switch 2 along and try to use the mouse controls on our friend’s grave. It felt a little too dark even for us, but we agreed that he would have appreciated it. We spent an hour together at the grave site, trading memories, showing each other dumb YouTube videos, and sharing a moment of silence together. Later that night, we retreated back to the childlike innocence of a four-player split screen. No matter how much has changed for us in the past two decades, Mario Kart still has the power to bond us.
Staying connected to friends via games is easier than ever these days, even as local multiplayer becomes an attraction reserved for games like Split Fiction. I can’t tell you the amount of life coaching friends did for me during Destiny 2 strikes. I still trade Pokémon with the same trainers I grew up with. I hope to get plenty of mileage out of the Switch 2’s GameChat feature over this console generation. But I still cherish those rare moments where I’m able to sit down with friends in the same room and share a multiplayer memory together. They’re irreplaceable. It’s never about the game we’re playing; it’s more about the ritual. To gather for a local multiplayer session is to tell our loved ones that we’ll always set space aside for them.
Who cares if it’s almost midnight? Time stops around a living room TV. Of course we can do one more race. And another, and another. Let’s just promise that we’ll play again soon.
