There are a ton of characters in Mario Kart World (50 to be exact), but you have to unlock a few of them first. If you’re rushing to unlock Cataquack or Rosalina, you’ll want to know the specifics for unlocking certain characters, as some require you to clear a cup, whereas others require you to use the Kamek item.
For the sake of organization, we’re considering character outfits an entirely different thing. We know that they’re listed on the character menu as a separate entry for each outfit, but their unlock requirements are different, so… y’know. We’re breaking it up or else this page is going to have too many entries and it’s going to be confusing.
Below explain how to unlock all the characters in Mario Kart World that we’ve unlocked so far.
How to unlock characters in Mario Kart World
Characters have different unlock methods in Mario Kart World. Some characters require you to win at a certain cup, whereas others are random unlocks from using the Kamek item in races.
For the cups, you’ll need to play and complete the cup in the Grand Prix, it doesn’t matter if you place or not.
Kamek-based characters are a bit trickier, as the creature that Kamek turns you into is somewhat random. You’ll also only unlock the character if you get turned into it, rather than if you are the one who called Kamek to turn your opponents into it. We haven’t figured out a specific way to get Kamek’d constantly or quickly unlock these characters outside of just… playing races.
Below we list out the unlockable characters we know about so far, based on our testing. We’re still figuring some exact methods here, but we can at the very least confirm that the characters listed below were unlocked via the respective method we’ve listed. There may be multiple ways to unlock characters, but this is what we have so far:
| Character | Unlock Method |
|---|---|
| Birdo | Play the Banana Cup |
| Bowser Jr. | Play the Lightning Cup |
| Cataquack | Get turned into a Cataquack by Kamek |
| Chargin’ Chuck | Get turned into a Chargin' Chuck by Kamek |
| Coin Coffer | Get turned into a Coin Coffer by Kamek |
| Conkdor | Get turned into a Condor by Kamek |
| Daisy | Play the Flower Cup |
| Dolphin | Likely Kamek, but we're still confirming this! |
| Donkey Kong | Play the Mushroom Cup |
| Fish Bone | Likely Kamek, but we're still confirming this! |
| King Boo | Play the Leaf Cup |
| Lakitu | Play the Shell Cup |
| Peepa | Likely Kamek, but we're still confirming this! |
| Pianta | Get turned into a Pianta by Kamek |
| Rocky Wrench | Likely Kamek, but we're still confirming this! |
| Rosalina | Play the Star Cup |
| Spike | Likely Kamek, but we're still confirming this! |
| Swoop | Likely Kamek, but we're still confirming this! |
