Mario Kart 8 Deluxe update removes the need to add people as friends before racing together

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Mario and Inkling Girl racing

(Image credit: Nintendo)

Today (November 9), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s final wave of DLC available via the Booster Course Pass has been released, alongside a free update for all users which includes a crucial new feature to streamline online play.

Version 3.0.0 is available to download now, and as well as addressing a couple of issues - like the explosive Bob-omb cars in Moonview Highway blowing up for some players but not all online - it’s also added the feature to host an online room without having any friends added on Nintendo Switch. Furthermore, opening a room now generates a unique Room ID, which can be shared with any players - regardless of whether or not you have them added as a friend - for them to join and race alongside you.

Previously, although you can race with anyone in random online lobbies, hosting a private online session could be clunky since you’d need to be registered as friends on Switch with other racers for them to join. Therefore, playing with a group of new people wasn’t always quick and straightforward. This new addition should smooth out this problem for good.

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Another major change has been made to seemingly deter players from ‘sandbagging’ (a technique which sees players purposely staying back in the lower places so that they’re more likely to acquire powerful items). Specifically, the patch notes state: “Made it so that you can’t acquire strong items when taking an Item Box by stopping or driving in reverse, or taking an Item Box that is in [the] same location multiple times during a race.”

Additionally, on the main menu, all players can access a new ‘Music’ feature, which allows you to listen to the music from every track in the game. That includes the DLC tracks, even if you've not bought the Booster Course Pass.

With this latest wave of DLC, there are now 96 tracks to race on in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which certainly helps preserve its longevity. To check out the other changes rolled out in the free version update, you can read the full patch notes.

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Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.