11 Comments
User's avatar
Katya Ryabova's avatar

Stories like these are better than any hardware review in my book! Thanks for sharing Patrick, I'm glad your family's first morning with the Switch 2 was this eventful 🙌🎮

Expand full comment
Zack Goodwin's avatar

Nintendo not having local multiplayer for free roam sounds was not on my bingo card. I'm actually genuinely shocked. They're normally better than this. I'm glad that my own little one is a few years away from caring about Mario Kart, because this might otherwise have been a huge disappointment. At least it'll be easier to break the news to my wife about it.

Also, I love how many grown men are standing in that line.

Expand full comment
Andrew's avatar

One of my 5 year olds also calls this “Mario Kart 2”. They all have so much to learn.

p.s. can recommend the TomToc Switch 2 case

Expand full comment
James Andrew Perla-Adams's avatar

My wife and I love to do couch co-op in games, so reading this pitfall was disappointing. I do look forward to getting a Switch 2 and finally playing Switch 1 games at better performance though.

Expand full comment
Ryan K. Rigney's avatar

I was also really looking forward to doing local split-screen Free Roam with my oldest—crazy that's not in there!

Expand full comment
Amy J's avatar

Ah a constant annoyance for me with most games 🙈 my husband and I love couch co-op, but the amount of times you delve into a “multiplayer” game to find out it’s only multiple players ONLINE, is wild and so annoying! Glad you were able to find a workaround and hope they resolve it in the future!

Expand full comment
Rhys Elliott's avatar

Thanks for sharing Patrick! Excited for more coverage

Expand full comment
Malcolm's avatar

I haven’t been following the pre release that closely. What’s the difference between free roam and the “drive between” race tracks during a Grand Prix that changes things from a technical end?

Expand full comment
Alexander Newcombe's avatar

This was an really great read. Thanks Patrick. I bet you saved a lot of other families some tears

Expand full comment
Ross Llewallyn's avatar

I applaud your quick thinking and solutioning, as well as your intent to create a positive experience for your kids.

How predictable was this? Were you aware of this limitation ahead of time? Should we think of this as just a big miss from Nintendo? Y'all have to be a common scenario.

In your writing about what your kids were looking for in this game, notably just "the space" to be together, it struck something in me from when I was young. Yes, there's definitely something special about embodying a space together without the racing limitations and playing pretend. To not make it abundantly easy to do is wild.

Expand full comment
Sooz K's avatar

their sweet little voices 🥰 🥹

Expand full comment