You. Do you crave more Nintendo Directness than you’ve already had this month? Do you want to learn more about Mario Kart World? Well, big Ninty has confirmed hoe long the special MKW Direct it pencilled in during the Switch 2 Direct will run for. You can also watch it right here.

Hey, it’s not like you’ll have anything better to do on a Thursday than watch Mario and Luigi show off their latest attempt to run each other of the road, because only one brother can remain.

You’ll be able to tune into this Mario Kart World Direct via the video above on April 17, 2025. It’s set to kick off at 2PM BST, which is 6AM PT, 9AM ET, and 3PM CEST. Just press play at that time wherever you are and boom, racing action with Toad, Daisy, and all the other characters who’re riding their coat-tails if we’re being honest.

It’ll run for “roughly 15 minutes” – about the length of a Grand Prix – and tell you a bunch more stuff about the game on Switch 2. Will the entire chat be screaming ‘DROP THE PRICE’, like they were during the Treehouse livestreams the other week?

We’ll have to see, but Mario Kart World’s price tag has definitely been a part of all that controversy, though it certainly hasn’t been the lone source of ire. The console itself, the Switch 2 Welcome Tour, and most recently the Switch 2 edition of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild have all caught flak from fans due to Nintendo’s pricing decisions.

In other recent Nintendo news, a leaker has claimed that Switch 2 pre-orders in the US and Canada could be back on soon, after Ninty delayed them so it could see how those pesky tariffs played out.

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The Esports Foundation opened applications June 11 for a creator program covering the 2026 Esports World Cup and Esports Nations Cup, with rewards the organization values at up to $2 million.

The program grants approved creators the right to rebroadcast selected tournaments from both events on their own channels. Supported platforms include Twitch, YouTube, Bilibili, Huya, and CHZZK, with additional platforms planned.

Content Creators are a Big Part of Esports World Cup Broadcast

About 3,500 creators co-streamed the 2025 Esports World Cup, according to the foundation. It is targeting roughly 5,000 participants for 2026 and says the expansion is intended to reach territories and languages outside its official broadcast coverage.

Participants progress through a mission-and-leaderboard system to unlock rewards. The foundation lists those rewards as gift cards, gaming hardware and consoles, streaming-platform perks, and invitations to attend the events in person. It has not published a per-creator payment structure, and the $2 million figure refers to the total reward pool rather than guaranteed payouts.

The Esports World Cup runs July 6 through August 23, 2026, at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, the event’s first edition held outside Riyadh. The Esports Nations Cup, a nation-based competition, is scheduled for Riyadh in November.

The creator program follows the foundation’s 2026 Club Partner Program, which provides $1 million in funding to each participating team.

Applications are open through the Esports World Cup’s official site.

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Brazil has more World Cup titles than anyone, five of them to be precise, but after going through five straight tournaments without adding to that count, the team is leaning hard on data this time. 

Every player wears a sensor-packed “smart vest” tracking field position (via GPS), heart rate, and a stat called “player load,” the same kind of numbers that your Whoop band or Apple Watch brags about, but tuned specifically for the sport.

So what exactly do these smart vests track?

The vests sit under the jersey, and Brazil uses them for its men’s, women’s, and youth teams. Every club sends the match or practice data back to the national team on a daily basis. 

That lets sports science chief Guilherme Passos monitor plenty of metrics including sprint speeds, fatigue, and hamstring rehab, not just for the national team, but for players scattered across continents. 

The smart vests stay on during World Cup matches as well, helping decide which player needs rest between games. Here’s the twist, and an interesting one no less. 

Passos once flagged a player covering only around 3.7 miles a match, which is about half what other teammates ran. By the numbers, he looked like a slacker. 

Why did the data almost get one of Brazil’s players benched?

But when coaches reviewed the video footage, they realized that the player, in Passos’s own words, ȧs always in the right spot, in the perfect tactical position (via BBC).

The player’s identity is a secret, for obvious reasons, but it’s the lesson that’s more important here: playing better doesn’t mean running more on the field, and the smartest player on the field can have the most boring smart vest data. 

This isn’t unique to Brazil, though. FIFA cleared GPS vest systems for official matches back in 2015. Most of the 48 teams at this World Cup are using similar setups from companies like Catapult and STATSports, the same brands behind a lot of consumer fitness gear. 

FIFA has leaned further into the data trend this year with Football AI Pro, an assistant built with Lenovo. It uses machine learning to analyze match data and feed instant insights to coaches and players. 

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Mario Kart World started development back in 2017 as a game for the original Switch, but ended up becoming a Switch 2 one because it devs felt the tech boost was necessary to deliver the world bit of it. Said devs have also offered us some more info about its most important character – Cow.

Yep, that’s right. Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Peach, they can all go do one. Moo Moo Meadows cow is the king of these streets, with an aura so powerful she can momentarily stop even the most outraged of Ninty fans from being unhappy about prices or worrying that they might not be able to make the switch to Switch 2 right away.

These tidbits and more come from a new interview Nintendo’s put out with Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki, programming director Kenta Sato, art director Masaaki Ishikawa, planning team lead Shintaro Jikumaru, and music lead Atsuko Asahi that so long it’s been divided into four parts. So, make sure you go grab your beverage of choice first if you plan on reading it all in one go.

We were thinking about what to do for the next Mario Kart game even during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and we began prototyping in March 2017,” Yabuki explained, “It was at the end of that year when we officially started work on it as a project. I felt that in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we were able to perfect the formula that we’d been following in the series up to that point, where players race on individual courses. That’s why, this time, we wanted the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began creating a world map like this.”

“When we were developing for the Nintendo Switch system,” Sato explained further on in the chat, “it was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return. We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 fps in some cases. It was a tough situation.

“Yabuki-san first brought [the idea of switching to Switch 2] up around 2020. Back then, we already had an idea of the next system’s expected specs, but it wasn’t until a bit later that we actually received working development units. Until then, we just had to proceed with development based on provisional estimates.”

“Of course, the graphics needed to be more detailed [due to being on Switch 2],” Ishikawa added, “But like Sato-san, I also felt like it was outweighed by the sense of relief. From the beginning, the designers were saying they wanted to make the art richer, so I thought we could achieve that now.”

The devs also explained how the driving Cow came to be, and offered a glimpse into her…er…mindset.

“Each new Mario Kart game features new characters to race with, but since we added so many to the previous game, we wondered where we could go from there,” Ishikawa explained, “And then one of the designers came up with [a] silly sketch of Cow cruising along, and I thought to myself, “This is it!” (Laughs) So that’s when we realized the course surroundings actually contained a lot of untapped resources.”

MK World’s devs call these environmental decoration characters who’ve gotten behind the wheel “NPC drivers”, with Yabuki noting that “it’s pretty funny to see a four-legged Cow holding onto motorcycle handlebars with her front hooves.”

Though, you shouldn’t worry, as Ishikawa insisted that he’s pretty sure Cow is “still in touch with her animal nature” due to the pose she assumes when she jumps, and that she’s “actually a pivotal character in the Mario Kart series” as a legacy of giving the devs ideas for other characters.

Will Cow become a pivotal character in your life once you get your hands on Mario Kart World? Let us know below!

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Instagram is expanding its AI-powered voice effects for DMs to more users, adding new filters to the feature as part of Meta’s FIFA World Cup 2026 push. The update is live on Android and iOS, though Instagram says availability is limited to select countries.

The feature first started rolling out in India in March with eight effects: Chipmunk, Demon, Alien, Robot, Underwater, Stadium, Wobble, and Fishbowl. The wider rollout now brings the total to 15, adding Goal!, Pirate, Autotune, Whisper, Grandpa, Grandma, and Princess to the mix. The Goal! effect is a new addition timed to the FIFA World Cup, and Meta says it triggers a surprise animation when sent.

How it works

To use the feature, tap the voice message button in a DM thread, then tap the new effect button that appears between the delete and send buttons in the bottom bar. First-time users will see a pop-up that reads: “Now you can transform how you sound in voice messages. Choose the perfect voice to make your conversations more memorable.”

The pop-up includes a Meta AI terms disclaimer noting that interactions will be used to improve AI at Meta. When a voice message with an effect is sent, recipients can see which effect was applied and tap on it to use the same one in their reply.

World Cup features across Meta’s apps

The voice effects expansion is part of a broader set of FIFA World Cup features Meta announced across its apps. On Facebook, the company is adding a Football Mode, tournament-themed stickers, and a Live Updates feature for Messenger group chats that surfaces real-time match highlights.

Instagram is also getting an enhanced search experience that surfaces curated tournament content, including Reels, Stories, and posts from official broadcasters and national teams.

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Almost a decade later, Mario Kart has returned with an all-new instalment for the Switch 2, inviting keen racers to our first open-world entry in the series: Mario Kart World. As you’d expect, Nintendo’s top racing game brings back plenty of familiar faces, including the titular Mario, of course, but the roster of available characters is longer than ever this time around.

You can drift around tracks as Super Mario 64’s Penguins, Super Mario World’s Chargin’ Chucks, or even Moo Moo Meadows’ Cows. These three only scratch the surface of who you can choose to play as, so without further ado, here’s exactly how to unlock all Mario Kart World characters.

How to unlock all Mario Kart World characters

Mario Kart World boasts a range of human and anthropomorphic characters to race around a track as, but you’ll have your work cut out for you trying to unlock them all.

First things first, a new character is unlocked for each Grand Prix you play and finish; it doesn’t matter where you place during these races, either. Simply complete a Grand Prix, and provided it’s one you haven’t played before, you’ll unlock one of the following characters:

• Birdo
• Bowser Jr.
• Daisy
• Donkey Kong
• King Boo
• Lakitu
• Rosalina

After completing all seven Grand Prix at least once, you’ll unlock the eighth and final Grand Prix – the Special Cup – and will have unlocked all seven of the above characters. Now, what about the rest?

To unlock the rest of the characters available in Mario Kart World, you’ll need to become affected by a Kamek Transformation. Kamek is a brand-new, very rare item that you or other players have a chance of receiving from the rainbow-coloured item blocks around a track (or in free-roam).

Upon use by yourself or another player, Kamek will fly around the course – in front of the player who used the item – transforming players into a different character, just for fun. If you are lucky and happen to be transformed into a character you don’t yet have, such as Coin Coffer, Dolphin, or Cataquack, you’ll permanently unlock that character.

So simply put, unlocking the majority of Mario Kart World’s roster of characters is a matter of taking part in races and hoping yourself or a fellow racer receives Kamek.

On top of that, however, alternate costumes for the main roster of characters can be unlocked by eating Dash Foods – shiny, yellow lunchbags – found outside of various food stalls across the map.

All Mario Kart World characters

To help you keep a track of who you have left to unlock in Mario Kart World, here are all characters and how they’re unlocked:

For more on Mario Kart World, take a look at our guide to how to unlock all vehicles in the game.

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What would Mario Kart World even be if it didn’t have a huge roster of karts, bikes, and buggies for you to race around its tracks in? There’s plenty of returning fan favourites to hop into, such as personal favourite Buggybud, as well as some new wheels to look forward to unlocking.

When first starting out in Mario Kart World, you’ll have approximately 10 different vehicles to choose from, with more unlocking as you play more of the game. In this guide, we’ve detailed all vehicles in Mario Kart World and how to unlock them.

How to unlock all Mario Kart World vehicles

Mario Kart World has approximately 10 different vehicles unlocked upon starting the game, but as you complete plenty of races or roam the open-world, you’ll find yourself unlocking a new vehicle for every 100 coins you collect.

There are 29 vehicles to be unlocked by collecting coins, which means gathering 3000 coins in total. This might seem like a lot, but if you’re doing plenty of racing – especially with friends in local co-op – you’ll wind up gathering these coins in no time.

As it stands, I found myself unlocking a new vehicle after every Grand Prix or Knockout Tour I did (and I was playing these solo), so it shouldn’t take you too long to get your hands on that cool-looking, speedy kart you want.

Here are all Mario Kart World vehicles and how they are unlocked:

For more on Mario Kart World, take a look at our list of all characters and how to unlock them.

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If you’ve spent any time at all exploring Mario Kart World’s open world in free roam, you might have found that there are some missions and collectibles to complete while exploring. One of these is P Switch missions. These are big, blue switches that you can drive into to begin a brief challenge.

These challenges consist of super fast races, coin collecting, or even driving on walls, and vary in difficulty. They’re scattered across the whole map, too, so you’ll want to keep an eye out for them whenever you’re free roaming or racing, but to help you out, here’s where to find all P Switch missions in Mario Kart World.

All P Switch missions in Mario Kart World

The below interactive map for Mario Kart World shows the location of all P Switches (well, it soon will). This map is a work in progress right now while we work to track every single bright blue switch down.

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At the time of writing, there look to be hundreds of P Switches to discover, and while these missions themselves don’t have any rewards, you’ll want to complete them anyways if you’re hoping to unlock Mirror Mode.

Don’t fret too much though, you don’t need to complete every mission to play the hidden game mode; you simply need to complete approximately 30 – 40 P Switch missions, as well as go about collecting some Hidden Panels and Peach Medallions while you’re at it.

Some examples of what to expect from P Switch missions are as follows:

• Reach a goal within a certain time limit; there’s usually obstacles to avoid and rings to pass through that extend the timer.
• Collect 8 blue coins within a certain time limit.
• Complete a race within a certain time limit.

As you can see, the P Switch missions have a common theme, and that’s completing an objective – whether that’s to complete a race, reach a goal, or collect coins – while avoiding new obstacles and utilising new mechanics (such as driving on walls and jumping). Some of these missions are surprisingly tough, but don’t worry, as there’s plenty more to drive to and complete in the meantime if one is stumping you.

For more on Mario Kart World, take a look at our list of all characters and how to unlock them, as well as all vehicles and how to unlock them.

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