Game Theory - Mario Kart World Should NOT Exist…

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

How is Mario Kart World even able to EXIST?! These biomes are WAY too close together and completely defy the laws of physics. In today’s episode, join Game Theory Host Tom as he applies real-life science to prove how Nintendo could be putting their beloved characters in harm’s way…

Mario Kart World makes no sense. From its rivers that defy the laws of physics to biomes that are way too close together, I assume Nintendo decided to leave the old science textbook back in the garage. But if you did take the science of this carting-themed world seriously, what you'd find is that this island is implausible at best and completely inhospitable at worst. Hello internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the show that knows it's Mario's world. We're just living in it.

So it's hard to believe it's already been nearly three months since the release of Mario Kart World. And in that time, players have dominated all the tracks, found all the shortcuts, and explored just about every inch of this massive open world. But as I was playing through the game myself, I couldn't help but think that something felt off about this Go Kart World. Besides the economy we spoke about last time. No, something felt off about the island itself. I found myself slamming on the brakes quite frequently to say, wait, this island doesn't make a lick of sense. And that line of thinking sent me down a rabbit hole longer than the new Rainbow Road. But when I got to the end, I found something far worse than a chequered flag.

Because not only would the geography of this island make life a living hell for these races, but the real truth is, there's a metaphorical bullet bill barreling down towards the inhabitants of this island. And when it catches them, well, let's just say even lack of two, won't be able to save them. So call me Rosalina theorists, because today, I'm going to be taking you on a bus tour across the Mario Kart World Island. to explore the land, air and sea in order to reveal how strange the geography of this world is and how it will affect both the races we see on track and the people who call this island home. From the moderately inconvenient to the existential threat that will affect all life as we know it. One of the first things that caught my attention about the geography of the Mario Kart world was its numerous rivers.

As I'm sure you're aware, rivers are pretty important for civilization to exist. It's going to provide a source of fresh water for the citizens, it makes the movement of people and goods more convenient, and in the case of Toad's factory, it can provide a source of power. Now, rivers don't just spawn out of nowhere. They have to start at a source. From there, they continue to flow downhill until they either reach the ocean or they pool up to form lakes. But if you've ever mindlessly explored rivers and games, or you've watched an any Austin video, you'll know that video game rivers don't always follow any sort of logic or really.

So, I hopped into my cart and traversed up and down the rivers in the Mario Kart world to map them out and see if they made any sort of logical sense. The short answer is, they kind of do, but also not really. I mean, the waters around Toad's factory just stopped flowing for some reason. But honestly, that's the least of the things I discovered. Let's start with the good. You see, there's a pretty hard and fast rule when it comes to rivers in the real world. They always flow downhill. Thankfully, in the Mario Kart world, they've kept some semblance of realism, as all the

rivers do in fact flow downhill, either towards the sea or one of the island's many lakes. Well, that is with one exception. Yeah. In the southeast section of the map, just underneath Great Question Block Ruins, there is this massive geyser that is just pumping gallons and gallons of water into the sky. Let's just set aside for a minute the physics of how this geyser could even be possible. The sheer fact that it does exist will end up having some major implications. on the climate of this part of the map.

You know, the expression, what goes up must come down. Yeah, the same is going to be true here as well. All of that water vapor that's being pumped into the atmosphere will eventually condense to form massive rain clouds that will inevitably bathe this section of the map in a near permanent rainstorms so long as the geyser keeps pumping. And speaking of the geyser, since it's pumping so much water out of the river,

there's a possibility that, over time, the flow of the river itself could be old. leaving everything downstream such as the faraway oasis without a source of water, turning it from an African savannah into a dry bone desert. But enough geese-a-talk, let's get back to the rivers. As I mentioned earlier, rivers don't just spawn out of nowhere. There's always some source of the flow, whether it's a massive lake or the water that runs off a snow-capped mountain. And so, I followed the Mario Kart rivers upstream to see if I could find the source of these mighty rivers. Most of them were pretty small and uneventful.

There are two in particular that really caught my attention. The lake located in the northwest of the map, just south of dry bones burnout, and the source that springs directly from Dandelion Depths, or should I say, sources. You see, Dandelion Depth has not one, but two sources of water, one that flows north towards Acorn Heights and one that flows south towards Cheap Cheap Falls. Now, when you actually investigate the specific spots where the rivers actually begin, you end up finding that all of the water is spurting out of these little little, metal holes in the wall, and as I'm sure you know, water doesn't come from rocks.

However, there may be a scientific explanation to explain where this water does come from. Just east of Dandelion Falls, there is a big snowy, mountainous section of the map that contains Starview Peak, sky high Sunday, and DK Pass. In the real world, water that melts off mountain peaks often ends up flowing downhill to become the ultimate source for various rivers. But those water sources don't always flow on the surface like a river. Take Evian, for example. The water that Evian bottles up and ships to hotel fridges around the world

originally starts its journey as the snow that falls on top of the French Alps. As the snow melts, it seeps into the ground and takes a 15 plus year journey, slowly flowing downhill, underground, before it eventually pops up at the spring located in the town known as, wait for it, Evian Le Bon. And when it comes to the mysterious source of Mario Kart World's eastern rivers, the same thing might be happening here. Water from the top of the snowy mountain is filtering underground and eventually popping out at Dandelion Deaths.

Let's just hope that Wario doesn't get any ideas about opening his own bottled water company. That same process is not what's happening in the northwest. There isn't any snow on the mountains around Bowser's Castle, you know, because active volcano. But assuming the temperatures around there aren't near the boiling point of water, rain can fall onto that mountain and, if it isn't swallowed up by the lava, pull into a lake just south of dry bones burnout. The water from that lake eventually splits in twain, flowing northeast towards Acorn Heights and south towards Toad's factory and eventually Crown City. And that sort

leads into my main problem with the rivers of Mario Car World. They split more times than a banana and an ice cream Sunday. Despite what Mario Kart and many a fantasy map would have you believe, rivers don't usually split into two. This is because not only does water flow downhill, but it also follows the path of East resistance. Therefore, if a river did attempt to split, the water would ultimately choose to flow in whichever direction gets it to the ocean with the least effort. So in order for the river to truly split in two, both sides would have to provide equally easy paths out to sea.

That's not to say that rivers never split. River deltas like the mouth of the Mississippi are able to split off since their land is relatively flat, thus providing multiple easy paths to the ocean. The Haaza River in Germany splits east to west into the Haaza and Elza, rivers. And there are actually a few big examples of rivers bifurcating in North America. But these are the exception, not the rule. So the fact that Mario Kart's rivers have more forks in them than the luncheon kingdom is certainly unusual. And even when these splits do occur, they don't tend to stick around for very long, which may end up having serious consequences

for the residents of the Mario Kart world. You see, as sediment builds up in the rivers over time, one path of the split can end up being clogged, leading to that half of the river being dammed and thus cutting off the water supply downstream. In Dandelion depths, if the river stopped flowing south, that would cut off water not only for cheap cheap falls, but also the canals of salty, salty speedway, this world's version of Venice. In the West, things would be even more dire. If the dry bones burnout lake suddenly stopped dumping water to the south, not only would Toad's factory source of power be gone, but so would the fresh water supply for all of Crown City.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to leave the fate of my city's water supply up to a coinflip. And we're just getting started. There's even more potential risks coming from the skies above. One of the first things you might have noticed when taking a bird's eye view of the Mario Car Island is just how many different biomes are crammed into one small area. Generally speaking, biomes are large swaths of land that get the same amount of rain and sun, as well as having a similar collection of plants and animals. And when I say large, I do mean large. large, sometimes spanning entire continents. Now, that obviously creates a problem for developers who want to set their game on tiny islands,

but still have multiple diverse biomes for players to explore. Normally, game devs just decide to forego scientific realism in the name of fun. And Nintendo was no exception. From up here, we can see Mario Kart World has a wasteland, a forest, a swamp, a savannah, a tundra, two deserts. You get the point. Not realistic, but it's a video game. However, while having this many biomes packed so tightly together may not be true to life, that's not to say that the placement of some of these biomes doesn't make some bit of scientific sense.

At first it might seem strange that there would even be a desert on a presumably tropical island. But it turns out this is possible thanks to a little help from the wind. When you have mountains located right along the coastline, things can get pretty weird. As the cool ocean breeze comes rolling in from the sea, it comes into contact with the mountain and the wind is deflected up, bringing with it all the moisture from the sea. That moisture ends up condensing into clouds and leading to rain falling on the side of the mountain closest to the wind, aka the windward side. But as we've said before, what goes up must come down. And that wind, now devoid of all of its moisture, falls on the opposite side of the mountain,

aka the leeward side, bringing with it warm, dry air, like a desert. This is why in the US, California can be comfortable and sometimes rainy, while just, Just over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, you have a dry, barren desert. The mountain sort of blocks the rain from getting to the leeward side of the mountain, hence why it is known as the rain shadow effect. Now, let's apply that to our island in Mario Kartz. If the wind is coming from the north or northeast, the mountain where we find Bowser's castle will block the rain from getting to the leeward side,

leading to the formation of the two deserts we'd see in the game. And it gets even better. Remember how during a rain shadow, we see that the windward side of the mountain ends up getting bathed in rain? Well, what do you see hovering over Bowser's castle? A permanent thunderstorm. Isn't it great when real world science makes sense inside of a video game? But, you know, all of that wind cresting over the top of Bowser Mountain

may also lead to the creation of what is quite possibly the coolest weather phenomena ever. Or should I say, hottest. Because once that warm, dry wind climbs over the mountain to the leeward side, it ends up forming these weird, unstable vortices of wind known as, eddies. And if we take a look back at Bowser's castle, what else do we find on the leeward side of the mountain? A whole bunch of lava. That's right, turbulent winds plus lava can equal what is known as a lava nado. Now, unfortunately, these aren't just spinning towers of liquid hot magma,

but they are no less cool. Instead, the high wind speeds end up picking up small bits of fire and lava and flinging them in different directions. Personally, I wouldn't want to be driving past that in my open seat go car. Just saying. And there's still one more way that these not so gentle breezes will turn this island upside down. But in order to understand it, I kind of need to go back a bit and explain exactly what wind is. I know that might sound like a simple thing, but the science behind it is actually quite fascinating. The secret to understanding wind comes down to pressure.

Pushing down on me. Sorry. You can think of pressure as the amount of air molecules in a given space. The more air molecules, the higher the pressure. But here's the thing. Nature, it doesn't like it. it when high and low pressure areas are next to each other. When that happens, the air from the high pressure area moves over to the area of low pressure

until the two sides are balanced out. Now, imagine you're standing in a field and on your left is an area of high pressure and on your right an area of low pressure. The high pressure air on your left is going to flow over to the right until the two sides are equal. Now, if you're standing in the middle of these two sides, what are you going to feel? Bada bing, bada boom, you've just learned what wind is. But what does it have to do with Mario Kart World?

Well, as it turns out, deserts, like those found in the southwest portion of the map, happen to be areas of high pressure. And so, when you put those high pressure deserts next to, say, a low pressure temperature area like Crown City, you're going to have a semi-permanent gust blowing air and sand towards the citizens of Crown City. And those winds can be no joke. For a real world example, look no further than the Santa Ana winds. During the fall in the US, high air pressure builds up over the Great Basin and Upper Mojave Desert. This causes air to flow down towards the low pressure areas of Southern California, leading to large gusts of winds that can last for several days, even a few weeks.

And it was these same Santa Ana winds that were partially responsible for exasperating the devastating wildfires in California earlier this year. So, yeah. Hot deserts located that close to other biomes? Not ideal. But it's our final section where things go from sort of. of inconvenient to a straight-up crisis. I've alluded to the fact that this island is small plenty of times already. But how small is it exactly?

Well, the answer actually comes not from pixel measurement or from even really the map itself. It's Mario's cart. You see, the formula for speed is speed equals distance over time. Therefore, if I take Mario and drive him across a stretch of road of an unknown length, as long as I know Mario's speed and the time it takes me to cross, I can figure out the distance of any rode in the game. Once I do that, I can scale it up from there. And thankfully, we already have a solution for this. Years ago at this point, we did an episode on just how deadly the carts in Mario Kart 8 were, and we calculated that they traveled at approximately 80 miles per hour,

or 129 kilometers per hour, at top speed on 150cc. And with the things we used to measure that speed, the finish line squares, being the same scale in Mario Kart world, we now have everything we need to figure out just how big this supposed world actually is. I found this stretch of perfectly flat and straight land outside of the Mario Bros circuit, and I timed myself traveling the entire length at full speed on 150cc. Over the course of three attempts, it took me on average 17.16 seconds to complete my trek. And so plugging our numbers into speed equals distance over time, we get that the length of this section of the map is 0.3791 miles,

or 0.6101 kilometers. Scaling that up, we get the width of the entire Mario Kartworld island to be just 8.21 miles across. Doing the same for the North and South Lane, we get the total area of Mario Kartwold, including the Carthable Bay to the south, to be, get this, 62.7 square miles, or 162 square kilometers. That makes Mario Kartwold just slightly smaller than Washington D. I know the people of DC think they're the whole world, but that's still pretty tiny for a Mario Kart world. Even compared to other islands, it's pretty pretty pretty.

Just 164th the size of the big island of Hawaii. And you know what? This ends up being the final death now for the residents of Mario Kart World Island. Why? Because tiny islands come with huge problems, namely the lack of food. People need to eat. And in order to make the food people need to survive, you need land. something that this island is severely lacking.

According to a study published in the journal Elementa, the typical America needs around 2.67 acres of land in order to feed themselves on their current diet for a year. Based on that math, that means that only around 15,000 people could survive on the island. And that's assuming you're using the entire island for farming, including the bay. In reality, between the wasteland, the deserts and the tundra, only around one third of the land is really usable for farming. The trouble is, Crown City is based on San Francisco, which has a population of nearly 830,000 on its own.

Lumu Meadows is going to have to be working overtime. Even if we assume the best case scenario where everyone on the island is doing a completely vegan diet, which only requires 0.32 acres of land per year, at best, we can feed around 42,000 people, which is just nowhere near enough. Forget rivers drying up, lava nadoes or even a freaking carting tournament. Without food, no one's going to be making it to the finish line. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.